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Show I Dorothy Dix Talks j By DOROTHY DIX. the World's Highest Paid Woman Write FAMiLY CURIOSITY W hat would you do, " asked a woman, wo-man, "if you had to llv with a mother moth-er in law. who is a human interrogation interroga-tion mark? "That is niy unfortunate late. My mother-in-law is devoured by an insatiable in-satiable curiosity that leaves me no more privacy than a gold fish in a glass bowl, as Irvin Cobb would say. ii i telephone, she must know whom 1 am calling up. and why 1 am calling call-ing them up, and what 1 am saying it anyone telephones me she listens in to try to find out what it is all j about. li I get a letter, tven from my own mother, she asks mo a thousand ques- j lions concerning it, and is hurt be-cause be-cause I don't offer to lot her read It. She wants to reud the letters I get I even from my college mates w horn She never saw, or heard of. "Avery time I put on my hat she waylays ine and cross questions me about where I am going, and why I am going, and how long I expect to be i gone, and whom I expect to see, and if 1 am going shopping I simply have to j sneak out of the house like a thief, and make a getaway without her. for . she is bent a,nd determined on accompanying accom-panying rne. and seeing and knowing cverytninx I buy. Every pin, I am catechized about the whole performance, perform-ance, and must tell exactly what 1 paid for it, ami explain why 1 didn't go to a cheaper place, and buy a cheaper article. "Every time anyone cornea to seo I me, mother-in-law comes and takes ' her scat in the room, and nover budu- 1 es until the visitor leaves, she is so afraid she might miss something thac j I said She doe this even when mem-beri mem-beri of my own family visit me, and presumably It never occurs to her that i we might nave affairs to talk oer thai j we ouldn't care to discuss before a stranger. I never have a private con- ' erqatloa with my huaband except ln our own room "No suspected criminal was ever more Incessantly watched and shadowed shad-owed than I am. Yet i am sure that my mother-in-law doesn't thus camp on mv trail thrnnrrh m.il'.re InrleiTl I sho Justifies her horrible curiosity on the grounds that it is her Interest ln mo and she weeps becauno she says 1 do not confide ln her, which means u-n her everything I do or think. But the situation has gotten on my net What would you do if you had to live with an old woman who was a Peeping Peep-ing Paul Pry '' oh. I would pray for strength to endure en-dure It with grace and patience, as you will have to do It is what everyone has to put up with who has to live w ith an old person, ror curiosity is on of the vices of old age. As people's interest ln their own affairs wane, lr Increases their interest ln other peo- j plo's. Undoubtedly, there Is no other one. thing on earth more trying, and moro wearing on nerves and temper than this peering, prying, poking curloflty of the old, but It has its pathetic side as woll. it means that the old have no life of their own, no hopes, no plans for the future. Tncy only live through those about them. .They must take their pleasures vicariously. They must feed on other people's Interest. Nothing happens to them. They have no adventures. Nobody wrlton them gay and Interesting letters. Then-own Then-own friends are as dull and dead a they are. Nothing is going to happen to them but a funeral so they must snatch what they can out of other people's peo-ple's lives. Surely, when wo thin Ic of what we qhould not begrudge them tho crumbn of Interest that fall from our over full table, and we should bear more pall-ently pall-ently the endless questioning about matters that are no concern of theirs. It 19 troublesome, nd tiresome, to have o stop to expuin to an old woman wo-man that it was Mav Jones who just called on tho telephone and sh said that her cook hod left, and hor baby had the croup, but that meager and j innocuous piece or news gives tho old lady something to think about for the I next two hours. It la a hideous borw to have to recount to an old man every islngle step of your progress downtown 'and back, but it gives a touch of Interest In-terest to his long day, and surely theae thlnys shall be accounted to us for l merit when we. too, come to the time of life when we arc spiritual parasites living upon tho fresh young lives of our cnlldren and grandchildren. Senility, however, is tno only excucc for family curiosity. Under threescore three-score ana ten it is absolutely unju.stlti-able, unju.stlti-able, and anyone who Indulges in tho vice should be boiled ln oil as the only 'punishment that fits the crime. I Every aecent human soul has Its reserve. re-serve. It has its secret chamber across i whose door "No admittance ' 13 w rit-ten. rit-ten. It has its love of privacy that it jealously guards, and it resents as an indefensible offence having tneao outraged. out-raged. The unacknowledged wish of almost .every heart is to be able to live one's OWn Hie without being watched, and without having to give an account tor every single act one does. Tho highest high-est bliss of hlch we can concole is not to be called upon for explanations and 1 excuses. This Is impossible ln tho average av-erage homo where family curiosity fcets ln its deadly worn, and where one cannot even buy a toothbrush without having to tell about the old one having hav-ing worn out, and how un' happened to need a new one, and at that shop one bought It, and what one said to tho clerk, and the clerk Replied and so on. adnauseum. It Is to escape family curiosity that families break up and go live as far from each other as tney can. The moral of all of flrhlcb Is th;t ve lessluy suppressed our curiosity ln our the hearthstone. Perhaps it we ruth-youth, ruth-youth, we would ask fewer question-when question-when we are old, and so bo less of an af fllction'to those who have 10 endure us. Dorothy Dlx's articles appear In this newspaper every Monday. Wednesday and Friday. |