PROPOSALS

Hawera Star, Volume XLVI, 6 November 1926, Page 11

PROPOSALS

'J'HE only lady to whom Dean Swift appears to have proposed was a Miss Waring, and he did so in a most imperious fashion. To the modern woman ho sound's much more like a victor imposing terms upon a vanquished foe than a palpitating lover suing for a lady’s favour. He beagn by asking:— Are you in a condition to manage domestic affairs with an income of less than £3OO a year? Have you, madam, such an inclination to my person and honour as to comply with 'my” desires and way of living, and endeavour TO MAKE US BOTH AS HAPPY AS YOU CAN? Will you be ready to engage in the methods “I” shall direct for the improvement of your mind, so as to make us entertaining company for each other without being miserable when we are neither visiting nor visited? Can you bend your love, esteem, and indifference to others the same way as I do mine? Have you so much good nature as to endeavour by soft words to smooth out the rugged humours occasioned by the cross accidents of life? Shall the place where your husband is thrown be more welcome than courts and cities without him? If .Tane Waring could answer these questions in the affirmative, Jonathan Swift said: “I shall be blessed to have you in my arms, without regarding whether your person be beautiful or your fortune be large.

SOME GREAT MEN’S EFFORTS

“Cleanliness in the first, and competency in the second, is all I look for. “I singled you out from the first from the rest of women, and I expect not to be used like a common lover.” Such an uncommon lover scarcely would be treated as an ordinary, common lover. There was one occasion in the life of Daniel Webster, the famous lexicographer, when words failed him utterly. The man who gave a great dictionary to the world could not find words wherewith to express his emotion when proposing maniage to the lady of his choice. One day, when kneeling before his lady love, he suddenly dropped the skein of silk she was winding off his hands, and made with a piece of tape taken from her work-box half a true lover’s knot. The lady, seeing the point, promptly completed it, and a kiss sealed the bargain. Sir Alexander Duff Gordon had been paying attention to a. famous beauty of his day when the customary gossip resulted. One day he said to Lady Austin, tho lady in the case: “Do you know people say w-e are going to be married?” And before she could reply he asked: “Shall we make it true?” The kneeling method of proposing is, it is said, not generally favoured today. when the ideal proposal is considered to be a telephone call and a emery, “H«w about it?” "*