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Show 9m I Dorothy Dix Talks j I ffl WE ONLY REAP WHAT WE SOW ! ffiqSM . I By DOROTHY DIX, the World's Highest Paid Woman Writer I The reason that many people are so disgruntled with life is because they expect to reap where they have not ''These same individuals would send in a' hurry call for an alienist if they j saw a farmer preparing to gather in a. y rich harvest from a field that he had ' neither tilled nor sown. Thoy see nothing unreasonable, however, in demanding de-manding that they, themselves, should enjoy all of the good- things of life without their having done anything to earn them. We have a common example of this in ;the men and women all about us who are failures. They rail at fate, and curse their luck, ami talk about pull, and favoritism, when the plain truth is that they are cheaters who are trying to reap where they have not sown. They have never planted the seeds that eventually flower into achievement. achieve-ment. They have not honestly striven. They loafed, and idled, and turned quitter when the long hard pull came that requires putting your back, and your mind, and your soul into your There is no use in tel.mg these people, peo-ple, that every successful man and every ev-ery successful woman is merely reaping reap-ing what they have sown in hard work, in long hours, in faithful performance per-formance of duty In the face of dlffi-lw dlffi-lw cujties. .They do not want to win success S that way. They want some miracle to happen so that they may enjoy tho fruits of labor without having to "labor. And the miracle never comes off, .Other people want to gain in the harvest of love without .laving earned love. They want to be loved wUhout ever doing anything to earn love. ' Show No Affection. Not long ago a man complained bitterly bit-terly to me that his wife and children neVer showed him any affection, and that he felt an outsider in his own Xhis man had been a hard and tyrannical ty-rannical husband and father. Never, after he married her, did he show his wife any tenderness. .e rarely spoke to ,fher except to find taulL He was stern and cold to his chil-ir.-ya;, dreh. He never petted and caressed (muT litem even when they were babies. He Ijlflr never talked to them, or took them on 1m lauhts, or made any little treats for H. them, He never showed them that he had any love for them, and they grew ; up, 'in such deadly fear of men that even g when they were men and women they W were silent and constrained in his w presence. Such a man has no right to expect his family to love him He had never sown love, .and tenderness, and klnd-Hj klnd-Hj ness, and he could no more reap a rich Hj harvest of affection than could tho farmer gather in the wheat from the field he had permitted to grow up in i- thistles. H; Very many people are like this man. Hh; They do not realize that unless they H; are lovable they can not hope to be loved. They go their selfish and self- n' centered way through life, trampling H over the rights, of others: Snconsider- Ki ale of tho feelings of others, ignoring HH the joy's and sorrows of others, and yet Hl expect to have affection showered B upon them In spile of their having Bb.1 done nothing to merit 1U Hfli You, often hear men and women, ea- D' pecially old men and women, bewailing H ,1. their loneliness and lack of friends. HK Yet. in all their long lives they have Hl dono nothing to win friendship, or bind Hb other hearts to theirs, l Never Helping Hand. M They never held out n helping hand $5-' to anyone in need. They never put HlL aside their own pleasure to weep with g n those who mourned, or rejoice with those who were glad, and so when the j time came when they hungered for i human companionship, and affection, they ached for it in vain. 'They had , failed to sow the seeds of friendship and so when they came to reap their i j field it wasgbarren. I i Wo are called upon to listen to no J tale of woe so often as that of Ihe wife (who-walls that her husband has grown j indifferent to" her, that he has ceased I to care Tbr'her,rjpr to enjoy her society ind that he is at home as little as possible. . j- Nine times out of ten the .'-woman who tells you that she has lost her .husband's love js so unattractive that only a man who was a miracle of faithfulness faith-fulness could have retained any sentiment senti-ment for her, She has allowed herself to become physically unalluring. She has ceased to comb her hair and pow- der her nose, and her clothes look as jlf they had been pitchforked at her. She Grows Dull. Worse still she has grown dull and stupid as a companion. She nover 'reads. She has never anything bright and interesting to talk about. She i whines and complains, and when her husband comes home It is to a dreary ill-kept house, and to have to listen to a peevish, fretful, discontented wife Igrouchlng because she has to worry over" children and servants, and can't have everything rich women have. Why should such a woman ever hope that her husband will find her attractive? What is there about her to intrigue any man's fancy? What is there in a home that is the abode of all the glooms to draw a tired man to it after his hard day's work? Such a woman is too lazy, and shiftless, shift-less, and selfish to take the trouble to keep her domestic garden plowed, and (Seeded, and worked, and it is her fault j when the heartsease are choked out by tho weeds. Because her husband loved her once, I she thinks he will love her always, no j matter how unkissable she becomes. , Which Is a fatal error. Love is not perennial that renews itself year after! jyear Hather It is a one day flower that has to be planted anew every morning in a man'8 soul if a woman wants to keep herself perpetually adorned with it. If a wife wishes to reap constancy in her husband she must sow tho seeds of charm, of agree- j ( ability, of personal interest from which constancy grows. J Warning to Parents. This truth, that we can not reap where we have not sown, Is one thai I parents should impress with peculiar earnestness just now upon their children, chil-dren, for the young have grown impatient impa-tient of the old, slow, plodding method of winning success, and are hunting for some short cut to It. And there is none. Boys and girls aro not willing to put in the labor, or take tho time to learn how to do their work thoroughly. They demand big salaries that they can not earn, and they change from occupation to occupation, and position to position, seeking the mythical job. with no work, short hours, and a fat pay envelope, enve-lope, which they never find. They should be made to understand that beforo thoy can command high pay they must be able to do good work. Before they can hold responsible positions posi-tions they must be fitted to fill the places of authority. Before they can command they must have submitted to authority' themselves. In a word before be-fore thoy can reap the harvest of success suc-cess they must have tilled the soil .and sown tho seed in sweat of soul and body. For that is the law of nature wo cannot reap where we have not sown and the law never Changes. |