"WOMEN THAT WERE"

Evening Post, Volume CIX, Issue 29, 4 February 1925, Page 13

"WOMEN THAT WERE"

SILENT DINNER-PARTNERS,

lhe women of the last generation were (as Miss Alayor, that observant novelist points out) "incapable, of discussion, iney were as inarticulate as the uneducated, though often almost erudite " ■Usrtainly those ladies wore better read than most girls ate nowadays; they knew several modern languages, painted tolerably in water colours, played Beethoven, and read their Robert Browning £>Ut the mass of the upper-class women did not talk well (writes-Ella Hepworth JJi^on ai the "Westminster Gazette") ti ? y. bS }"ed, V leir P«:tners at dinner. Uie late Sir Viutor Horsley used to declaro to young women that only as.the twentieth century dawned did lie begin to enjoy dining out. Before that time it was considered "not'quite njee" for women to air their opinions at the dinner table. Like children, they were there to be seen, not heard. Row many of us can remember a mother in pink silk flounces who accused -some feminine guest at iV dinner party of having "talked for effect?" -lo talk tor effect was as much a crime in later Victorian society as to "dress tor effect " Neither was in the best taste. -My dear, eat your dinner and ao not talk so much" was the parting advice handed out, later on, when tlit daughters took their mother's place at London dinner parties. How odd- it would sound now, when most of the talk issues from, feminine lips, and the meu sit round, amused and listening! Ihe chief drawback of conversin»l „ y°unS nowadays is that tliev all talk at once and seldom listen for a reply. It is something of an achievemen to got a word in edgeways, and even then you may bo proud if it is taken up and argued about, before "it is dismissed for good.