OVER THE TEA-CUPS.

Auckland Star, Volume XLIV, Issue 16, 18 January 1913, Page 15

OVER THE TEA-CUPS.

THOSE ES-GLTSH COUSINS. (From Our London Lady Correaponclent.) Comparisons must always be objectionable, but, after all, they're the only standards by which we can measure anything. And they seem particularly to attract New Zealanders. "Which do you like best— England or New Zealand?" is a ridiculous query as often put forward i—is side of the world as the other, and is unanswerable—it only for reasons of diplomacy—wherever put. 'But "Shall I like English women 1 fe of interest to nawcomers and old, aJid is not only asked when people have arrived here, but is written beforehand. She's such an institution, ns the Englishwoman, that -it's ©maU wonder her acquaintance is approached with something of trepidation by her cousins from overseas. Not without reason either, for of all the critical beings in the world none more so than the Englishwoman. It is, ■perhaps, the one thing that even the totally uninteresting woman unconsciously specialises in, and it is a remnant still alive and kicking of the narrowness of outlook considered a proper attribute of the woman of fifty or more

years ago. She is always criticising someone or something, or some attribute or some idea. That's one of the reasons she is narrow. Because there's no standard about snch criticism; you are part of a system in all but intellectual England, arid* if you don't do exactly everything that every other cog in the wheel of society does you must be wrong, for it can't be. Much more is it exercised, this polite searchlight, on the cousins from any Britain overseas than foreigners. It is another relic, as old as the dictum that "God sends friends and the devil relations." and it 's, perhaps, a little excusable when one remembers that relations do stick in a way that friends don't and expect as rights what are only extended to outsiders as privileges. It's as well to remember, too, that our New Zealand searchlight, in spite of its youth, is remarkably keen when turned on our English connections!

Troubles arise from two sources. First they are inclined to disappointment because we are so like themselves, this because we are so different from themselves. A.id both are due to the infinitesimal narrowness of outlook this end. Hwt is an instance. We laughed merrily at the man. now a proverb, who called Onchunga "One hunger," and then. seemingly on our instructions, One Tree Hill "One Tree Hill" —and that was rude of us. We come over to England and pronounce Belvoir as it is spelt and make other errors of the same flavour, and they are a little shocked, as if something vital had been left out of our• education—.which id ridiculous of them. THE FUNDAMENTAL RULE. But that sort of thing can grow and [ grow if people are not sensible, and I quite a good many people are not, really. j There ought to be exactly the same | fundamental rule in relationship as in '•friendship and ■marriage—that good old workaday sledge-hammer maxim, "Give and take," but we know it to be mainly take in relationship. It is as difficult to advise New Zealanders as to how they'll like Englishwomen as to premise how a certain kind of being will enjoy .himself at an uncertain description of festivity, because, of course, everything depends so much on the two relations. For instance, if a girl from any of the towns of New Zealand conies lo i/ondon proper she. has something of an advantage over the country-bred girl, who comes to stay with relatives in the suburbs in England. In the second case she can't always get away and fend for herself as in the first, and if she's bound to blue skies and open spaces in Now Zealand, to say nothing of healthy habits that ■prompt -her 'to sing in.(her bath or in the English corridors, or to practise if she 'feels musical, she's probably sure to feel suffocated for awhile, for those sort of tilings would probably be considered odd by quite nice and apparently commonsense people in suburbia.

The Englishwoman makes very little " noise—it isn't good taste—even if the • noise is musical and happy. Therefore, if you. who have been accustomed to 8 cooees out of doors, and to running instead of walking about if you feel in- '• clined to do so, you'll be regarded as not quite civilised. And ytoull soon t find nothing romantic about that sen- * sat ion. ' PRIDE—WITH US AND WITH THEM. I The only golden rule for conquering j a besetting sin is to ignore the horrible i thing, and dwell persistently on tne opposite virtue—a sort of r<~i 'light cure, c ■and so many virtues has the English- c woman tl_t the other things OUguu to \, be able to be rejected. c To Tevert for one moment. Her pride ] is an affair about which a guide-book t should be issued, so complicated a tiling and so difficult of comprehension is it. In English suburbia we find that New Zealanders have a reputation of being more free and easy than English people in their class. In New Zealand parlance this means that whereas the English housewife would be too proud to ask a ■ I friend unexpectedly to lunch, t-he New Zealand housewife would be proud to ask her, knowing 'the all-important preliminary to " pot luck." Both prides are ' pride—one seems false and the other <true. So, again, if an English girl had ' been dusting—they don't sweep or understand scrubbing, or how to investigate chimney interiors in the suburbs— and you called, she would neither consider it a. compliment to you or to herself ■to simply wash her hand, and, in order not to keep you waiting, come in, otherwise, as she was. But her pride is quite splendid, too— one of her very best attributes, and the , one that has made her the first class i colonist we know she can be if she ; likes. It bids her put a good face on > misfortunes and bear hard things silent - • ly, and it accounts for the way she ( keeps her family and home together that . must be one of the explanations of the hardy term, " Tight little Engl—id." , She is very susceptible too praise, -the i dear lady, and expects it—so do we! ! She gives generously to things that she j knows well, and would never dream of t taking the risks that New Zealanders 5 do in the country in befriending old people who want odd meals and other , odd things, and she is very sympathetic and ready to be taken in in ways that c seem to us people easy to read. c Though woefully ignorant, too often, of Teal literature, politics, drama, and foreign affairs of note, she is gentle and well-bred, and has a pretty knowledge of her own country's birds and t flowers, and church and pagan festivals, ,t an* she always behaves with unerring d pr< priety. :, Only her methods differ from ours—in r. reality sue is a first cousin, and a fery good sort and sport.