Ways of Living.

Alexandra Herald and Central Otago Gazette, Issue 388, 15 October 1903, Page 2

Ways of Living.

EEEVANT GIELS. \ ,MN Germany there is no state or calling, qlp no social class which is wholly with'jsk cu * direct relations to the Government and the luler. Indeed, in most cases these relations and the marks of distinction to which they eventually give rise to domestic servants form no exception to the rule.. They are rewarded jor long service by the State, and for very long service by the Queen of Prussia and German Empress. ' At the laßfc distribution of prizes to I servant girls—one can hardly call them < girls, seeing that they spent nearly half a | century in service—on no loeb than 176 of > their number the Gold Cross for Domestic

Service was solemnly bestowed, together with the diploma conferring upon the recipients the legal right to wear the insignia of the order. No cook or chamber maid received this much coveted token of distinction who had not served at least forty years in the same family. Fidelity is thus highly prized in Prussia, but,'as a disappointed house maid recently remarked, it ought not to be asscciated with the element of chance. Thus sometimes the family may die out while the fidelity and eagerness to serve is still active, tut unemployed. Chance, however, plays a part in every walk of life, not . excepting Abigail's. Curiously enough, the province le&Bt affected by modern culture offered the larger percentage of ' good -and faithful servants.' Euh it was not only domestic helpers who were thus distinguished by the first lady of the realm. Sages-ferames who had passed forty years of their lives in their useful calling* were rewarded with gold brooches, and it is highly to the credit of the guild that no fewer than 287 of these self-sacrificing ladies, whose lives were spotless, claimed and received i the artistic ornaments.

THE COSTUME OF THE HEROINE. Let a woman of taste who knows how to dress, and has a pretty manner of arranging rooms and the pen of a ready writer, establish a syndicate or a bureau where novelists can come for their stage settings, as it were. - Men, as a rule, are deplorably ignorant when it comes to describing women's clothes. They know how they want their heroines to look en certain occasions, bnt fhey haven't the remotest idea how to the costume. In the collaborated novels, such as Mrs. Campbell Praed and Sir Walter Besanf have written, it was Mrs. Praed who did the boudoir scenes and dressed the heroines, . As able a writer as was Mr. Frank Stockton, he rarely advanced farther in description than to array his heroine in *a fashionable driving costume edged with fur,' or some equally vague illustration. It is evident that Kipling also realiees his limitations, for his 'ball room frocked' heroine leaves much to the imagination. Suppose an author arrives at a certain point in a story when he wishes to present ' his heroine to the public in such an attractive guise that will be an everremembered picture. And added to the difficulty ef having her properly gowned, he wishes to picture her fashionable surroundings, the boudoir or drawing-room such a girl would naturally have. Being a student and something of a re cluse, the environment of a pretty girl of the prebent time is quite out of his Use. He writes post haste to the syndicate, *My heroine is tall, with grey eyes and tawny hair, artistic tastes, has always had money. Please send full ' description of her costume for her first ball, also details of her home.' Jn this way all the purely technical work is done for him, and he can take up the thread of the etory with the same relief that a woman feek when she discovers a modiste who uadeistands her. The author proceeds to work cut hia psychological points with ease and freedom, in a happy consciousness that his Dorothea's gown is beyond criticism, FIFTEEN MINUTES A DAY. | An excellent amateur pianoforte player was recently "asked "how she had managed to keep up her music. She was ever forty, and had brought up a large family. She bad never been ricb, and she had had more social burdens than fall to the let of most women. 'How have you do it?' said her friend, who had long ago lest the musical skill which Bhe had gained at a great expense, both in time and money, ' I have done it,' replied the other, *by practising fifteen minutes a day, whenever I ould not get more. Sometimes for several months together I have been able to prgejise two or three hours each day. Now and then I have taken a course of lessona, so as to keep up with the times; but, however buay and burdened I have been, .unless actually ill in bed, I have practised at leaßt fifteen minutes each day. This has tided rae over from one period of leisure to another, so that now I have still my one talent at least, a3 well improved as ever it was, with which to entertain my friends and amuse mjself.'