OCR Text |
Show I Dorothy Dix Talks DON'T BE A REPEATER By DOROTHY DIX, tho World's Highest Paid Woman Writer I I There is one text in the Bible that ' ory woman should have framed, and I hung aboe her dressing table where ,.she will see It every time Fhe powders her n-'se it's that one which tells u on Divine Authority that we ire not heard for our much speaking. Which means that saying the same thing ovei millions of times doesn't get us anywhere, or add one lota to the strength of our proposition, or 'make anyone a particle more willing to listen attentively to us. Of course women will never believe thi because they have got an unshak-iable unshak-iable faith in the multiplicity of words, iand they firmly believe that the con-jtinual con-jtinual drip drip drip of the same ad-: ad-: Ice. or the same reproach, will wear .away the atonlest resistance. This Is far from being true. On the ccntrary, we will all listen once with an open mini to anybody's statement ;of a case, but when they thrust it up-;on up-;on us In season, and out of season. I we get our banks up, and get just as .stubborn as any balky mule j It Is because mothers correct their children too much and too often that 'they never succeed in correcting their ; faults at all. Vou will often hear a woman say peevishly, "1 don't know 'what I am going to do about Johnny's ; table manners. There Isn't a meal that I don't tell him a dozen times not to eat with bi knife" ur she will nu, "Heaven I ridws how I will break Mary of sniffling I am at her al day long about It," 'I hat's he trouble. She has nagged hi-r children about their bnd habits until she has made them stubborn, or, elue the have heard the same critic-j (ism so often that It has ceased to uiake the least Impression on them i Sfel one real, quiet, heart-to-heart talk.' with Johnny In Which he was made to understand that gentlemen do not1 perform the sword swallowing act atj dinner, would have cured him for-, ever. Nor would Mary hae sniffled ; anther sniffle if mother had taken ( her aside, and made her understand, i once for ail, that she was making her-! self an object of ridicule. lnm.- 'i i lrl rrn ftYlf i-xrlalned to . me that the reason thov never paid any attention to what their mother aid to them was because she always jald "don't" to everything they wanted to do and was always after I hem about what they did, anyway, so they had figured It out that they might just as well do as thev pleased. After all. maintaining one's authority oyer children la '-rv much like maintaining maintain-ing discipline In an army It is the Crisp, short command that Is obeyed Not the eternal arguing and bickering Bui mclhers haven't found this out. It is woman's inability to say a thing once, and be done with it that does more than anything else to alienate the affection of husbands from their wives and destroy all con-fidence con-fidence between them. The natural impulse of a young husband is to tell his bride e rvthing. to relate to her the story of hia life, to tell her of the mistake he makes, because he craes her sympathy. Nlost men start out this way. but few men ever repeat the mistake for they find that their wives harp upon any error they have committed, and that they never hear the lost of It. Wives are always holding poatmdrtenia upon the weakness to which their husbands have confessed. Let there T be a shortage of money, and a wife will remind her husband of money i he loaned n friend twenty years ago, and that was never repaid Let him once In his youth have been drunk, and she will throw It In his teeth when ho is so old he has only got false teeth. Women ner forget and never ceaso talking about their grievances griev-ances It s repetition of the same old admonitions, ad-monitions, the ?ame old criticisms, the sianic Old advice, the same suggestions, da after day, year after year, that makes family lift- get upon our nerves until there are times when we feel as If wc would Iik6 to arise and choke those nearest to us. It is being told over and over, and over again to put on your rubbers, to take a heavy coat, not to drink your coffee black, not to read in that light, not to sit up with your book, not to go out when it is lainint;, not to do tns, not to do that or to do this, and do that, that makes everj child, at times, secretly a para-' para-' Mi- in his heart, and every husband and wife have their moments in which they eontemplate wife and husband desertion. And it is our acquaintances who cannot 6a a thing once nnd have done with it who so often make friendship a burden Instead of a Joy None of US object to hearing about our friend's children, th'.ir automobile, their business busi-ness and the!r health once. In fact, wc are keenly Interested the first time, but when we have to hear every detail de-tail of their offspring's lives, and listen to the score of tho miles they hue made In their machine, and hear every gory incident of the operating room, everv time we meet them we are bored to tears. The moral ol all this is that words arc valuable in proportion to their rarity. The less we say, the more eagerly we are listened to, and the most aluablc lesson that any of us can learn is to say a thing once, and then let it go at that. Dorothy nix's articles appear In this paper every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. |