MODES OF THE MOMENT

Dominion, Volume 26, Issue 290, 2 September 1933, Page 14

MODES OF THE MOMENT

Passing Notes by Jane

Wellington, September 1. Dear glavis, Walking up and down the city streets, or staring stolidly out of ■tram windows, I find myself poticing a great amount of building and housqpainting going on. This is evidently the fashionable moment for that sort of activity, and I’m envying very muqh the people two doors away, who are turning n drab small house into a new and shining abode. It’s made them look (mite different themgelves-rto me! It’s tepribly true that the wprld judges by appearances,’ and that to be successful you must look successful. Which has to do with houses as well as clothing. The attractive house, the cared-for garden, generally yehecis these qualities in its owners. It Is incongruous for tidy, well-grooomed people to come out of ill-keinpt houses,' with draggled curtains and the gates a bit sideways on thhir hinges. As a matter of fact, I did see it once, years ago, in the days when the Native Land Coiirt flourished- There was a very smart native assessor, very handsome and always most perfectly dressed. He had come, with the court, to a very small native village for an important sitting, and he stayed at the house of his aunt. The house of his aunt was a ramshackle little whare in the middle of a. blackberry-grown paddock, where fowls and dogs and cats and babies seemed always going in or out of its one door. You can imagine nothing more astonishing than the appearance in their midst of an exquisite apparition clad in white from head to foot, wflich was the grand nephew, dressed for a hot day’s work. Tie was beautiful to behold; but the aunt and the grubby little tamariki really belonged to thh picture. Our friend the assessor was all wrong. I began about the outsides of houses because, if we are all going to toe the line and get the necessary painting and alterations and so on done, then it’s certainly time we took some thought for doing'-up the Insides too. Thetd’s nothing more heartening.than giving a fresh aspect to the room in which you spend the most time. Even .if it’s only new curtains, It’s a help. Your house has a personality, just as you have. In fact, you hive put that personality there by the way you’ve treated it. A house in which people are is a delightful house to go into. You feel the atmosphere as soon qs the front door opens. Sometimes you get it as you walk up the garden path. A house responds to kind treatment just as children and animal B a hd gardens do. It doesn’t matter whether it’s big, or a tiny little house. It’s just some sort of fairy quality we don't quite understand, and that makes a house good to live in Or not. And gj; we take thought for the wardrobes of the family and ourselves, we should do the same for the nety furnishings needed by the house. At present, too, it is one of the new duties toward unemployment that walks hand in hand with personal economy. Prices are temptingly low, and steady buying upon normal lines is the one thing that will solve the unemployment question. Thrift has become such a popular virtue that at the moment many of us are leaning over backward in our efforts to be frugal. Financial prudence is a great Idea, but it should not Include wearing shabby clothes, or living in shabby houses, or letting our gardens go to seed. The new furnishing fabrics are just as lovely as the dress materials, and many of them within the reach of the most modest, purse. Is your garden full of spring flowers? And are little lambs friskiug on green hillsides? We’ve got some weather here, too.

Yours. JANE.