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Show hl Dorothy Dix Talk 1 OUR FRIENDS' ENEMIES " y DOROTHY DIX. the World's Highest Paid Woman Writer I "Why dn women who ore other-, wise well breil and observant of the .xmenltles of life, carry their private feuds Into general society'.' asked a woman the. other day. "They do, you know," she went on.i 'And It's one of the af dictions of existence or.ilnst which I always ro-, bel because it Is c unnecessary, nnd so brutally selfish on tho part of those Who arc not Willing to den? thorn-selves thorn-selves the pleasure f Indulging their potty spites, no matter how much an-( nuyanee It CAUSCB other people. Personally, I have gotten so tired of acting as a buffer between ladies who are out for each other's false hair every time they meet that I feel Ike retiring to some desert solitude, and doing the hermit Act the balanco of my days. While, as for riving a hen luncheon nr an afternoon at ' . lvldge, I am worn t sn h a fr.ir.l1 trying to nrrange my guests so that they will not commit murder upon .he perso..s of their next neighbors,! Li. a: I swear every lime I da it that II will never submit my nervous cyatcm fo iijch a strain again As a matter 1 : (act, the difficulty of reconciling the Irreconcilable does keep me from dfdlng lot of entertaining that I Iwoumi io n i mun i nave 10 u so oer who could be listed to meet whom without fighting i( "There are aliout a dozen women with whom I am on terniM of more jj or less Intimacy, and all of whom I H like, for one reason or another, but I thy seem to have the same effect on I each other that n red flag has on a M, . mad bull The minute they meet they 1 ko for each other, hoof and horn, or else they sit up In a frozen silence V-. !h;n sends tiie convivial atmosphere ,43L down to zero and nips my poor little iHf he bud. yB nurse I knev vll enough the IB reason for all of Ihes? vendettas. Mrs. imi A dislikes Mrs. B because Mm. B's' rjV son doesn't pay her daughter any at-1 fcvV tention. Mrs. C hates Mr". I" because Mrs I) didn t Invite her to R big re--''?;' ception. Mrs. E can't abide Mrs. F jj because one of them Is a Christian' jjjH if Scientist and the other Presbyterian, I ' and the wife of a doctor. Mrs. G. 4', and Mrs H. fell out oei the Red Cross work, and Mrs I and Mrs J. nro at dagger's drawn sine? the time jf ther both ran for President of the jg Browning club. flF "And so It goes, and I'll say that ' (fitting the comity ol nations is no more -fiH delicate nor diplomatic a Job than 49 pluclnp these women so they will not( rub elhows with their dearest enemies fll "Now I havo no objection to my mSM friends disliking each other If they 1 mM want to, and pet any pleasure out of MM It. I believe that the psychologists HH have discovered that hate Is a Btlnnulat-j fcJ Intr emotion that Is almos: as ct;Joy-1 KH sb!e as love as a sensation, and doer. iJH us good to feel. So my women pals i'H ar welcome to go to It, for all of i me, but I Insist that I shouldn t b made the victim of i' nnd have m parties ruined by It, and thn, v. he. , they indulge tn their feud orKK I thej (should do so In private, i "It 6cems to me that no matter how 1 much :t woman dislike- another wo. ma i sne should be enough a lady tr in!;-;, tbe hatchet when she meets hei In another woman's house, and that the most elemental good breeding should make her camouflage her feci-! feci-! lugs and act as if she found her fellow fel-low guest congenial. Certainly shr owes that to her hostey Kven savagei respect the bread and sail that much, but I often have my women friend? say to nie when ! ask them to lunch-Oh lunch-Oh ''o. don't put me next to Mr. So and So, I can't bear her' "Nor Is this all. The favorite 5n-' 5n-' door sport Of half my women friends Is nbuslnc the other half, which puts me In a painful and embarrassing position. po-sition. I don't want to be In an eternal argument with the traducers. yet if l nm not, I feel myself a traitor. To sit silent and h'-ar a friend accused of faults she does not possess or derided de-rided for little peculalrltles she may have hut which are no more than surface sur-face blemishes en a fln eh.ir.icter mui.es ic.-i iiiai . ,ii c ;t .. .-nun t cur. yet von do not wish to quarrel I with the woman ho is vesting her i 1 spleen for some grlevarice ar.ilnst the other woman, and who is, in spite Of I It. a cood ctnTi herself. "Certainly these r,f our friends who i Undortakfi to pick OUt our othe- friends . for us and edit our Invitation lists ::r guilty of a great Impertinence. ' and they commit an unpardonable broach Of good manners when they criticize to us those women we have selected as our Intimates, for In dplng so they impeach our taste, our Judgment Judg-ment and our sense of propriety. 1 "Vet, who escapes the candid fr.enl J who says. "I don't sco how you can i stand that Mrs. X. She comes of such ordinary people.' or rea- in what can you see In Mary Jones. She gets on my nerves.' and you ha e To bite our ' tongue to keep from saying that the reason YOU don't like Mrs. X. or Mary JonC3 Is because you haven't enough heart or brain to understand 1 them. For wo pick out friends as we do our clothes for many reasons and different wear Which Is a thing most of our friends don't understand, and never can understand, j "But all the iwinie. our friends' enemies ene-mies are a great and ever present r Bourse of trouble In society.' finished j the woman, '.'and I Wls'n somebody would Impress on women that tl.ey i should lng their hymn Of hate fifi they say their prayers In private In their i closets instead of foisting them on tho Innocent bystanders." Dorothy Dix's articles appear regu- I larly in this paper every Monday, Wednesday Wed-nesday and Friday. |