SENTIMENT.

Lyttelton Times, Volume LXXX, Issue 10213, 6 December 1893, Page 6

SENTIMENT.

(Gentlewoman.) “ Sentiment,” raid my medico to me, “is much the same as hysterics. Once ia a way women' really has a fit of hysteria; in ninety-nine casta out of a hundred it’s temper stirring up a melange of late hours, chloral, jealousy, too much overdraft at the banks, being on ill terms with a modiste, and that the latest chefd’cetivre from Bond street or thereabout is 100 analiney in tint.” Sir George is to a certain extent a phi losopher as a etudenfc of our—the superior—sex ; i.e., he knows enough about us co know he knows nothing about us. No man esn go further than that, Mes atnies (excuse me, thin Pekoe has a tinge too much orange ia it) — ones amies, I onco knew a woman who positively bathed in sentiment. Not eo very long ago, after alt. You know, or possibly may guess, at the sort of creature very well. Shelley, Chopin, nerve storms, green tea, red lavender, seaweed-green tea-gowns, husband with no sympathy, bound to lunch on Dead Sea fruit, &c„ &■?. Oh ! you know the sort cf thing, or at least you ought to. I met her first at an afternoon at Mrs Pita Keats’. She was a brand - new poetess, quite recently imported from Transatlantic shores. She was robed in dead gold, and had red Virginian creeper in her hair. Her voice was a sweet melange of Chioagoese, County Kerry and pseudo Sara Bernhardt., She was willowy and wavy and serpentine in her poses. And her poetry! On the wintry wind A withered sigh was borne— A sigh no hope could find, Audi, oh! I forlorn. What was that sigh. That sigh, said I. And as the wintry sunset set A memr’y came I ne’er forget. Then a voice near me said, “ Too sweet, ia it not ?” “The coffee ?” I asked. “Yes, and a little over roasted.” “ I beg pardon, I mean Miss Pntnsm Pogram Vanbrugh’s recitation and verse.” “Oh! indeed.” “ Do you belong to the Shelley Society ? I dote on Shelley. The Cenci is eo soothing and comforting.” Somehow this phrase reminded me of a popular advertisement. I smiled. “I own to being a little sentimental." She need not have told me; she showed it in her greenish grey eyes—in her locks Ala Tissot. Sometimes, like a good many other every-day folk, I indulge in acting against my better judgment. I accepted a card for an “at home.” Oh ! hew aruefie it all was. The room was a symphony, or polka, or gavotte, or rather a breakdown in orange. So we became intimate. You do become intimate, often enough too with a woman you have no particular liking for; in fact, with those who made an unpleasant first impression. It ia the rule of the world. When the little sweetstuff woman who sells her wares to the School Board children finds her stock grow unattractive from long keeping, she mixes all her atock together and calls it the Imperial Mixture, which is taken for granted at once as being a very superior article indeed. So it is with what we call Society—l mean not we, but some inferior creatures. Tha more the component parts are of a different character., the more it io taken for granted that it is the real thing as it ought to beShe called on me. “ A very nice woman indeed,” said somebody who was really a somebody. “Very artistic, and fill that sort of thing, don’t you know; si very good or you to introduce her to me—really too good of you! So nicely sentimental too.” By the way, I had—l' wish I had now—what used in the old days to bo called a jewel—s loeket thing to Lang on my necklace. There was a very large ruby ia it. I lost that jewel, ruby and all, About a month after Mro Pita Keats lost a sapphire-ringed vinaigrette. About two mouths afeer the stock-broking husband of my kcat!mental friend found it convenient to adjourn from the country. His faithful sentimental wife accompanied him. ***** Last month Julia Betastock came to tell me as to what sort of a time she had had at Chicago and San Francisco. “At Frisco,” she said, “who do you think we met? Your dear old sentimental Shelley-loving friend. She gives recitations in drawing-rooms. She had on aueh a pietty bracelet, four rubies ia an odd setting of sapphires.” I thought for a moment. Ia it possible that Shelley aud sentiment can ever under any circumstances get mixed up with petty larceny. Who knows ? I have lived long enough in the world to know that sentiment, like charity, often covers a multitude of Bias.