FROM A WOMAN’S ARMCHAIR

Manawatu Times, Volume LII, Issue 3579, 9 April 1927, Page 6

FROM A WOMAN’S ARMCHAIR

BELONG TO : -YOURSELF,

! ‘ d?here' arV sbmo women "who still put all their emotional eggs, - as it were, in one basket. In one. human being they centre all their hopes ot heaven on earth. One scarcely knows whom to pity the more; the idolater herself or the object of her exclusively possessive worship,. But perhaps it is the former, -poor .spul,. :Who needs our; profounder., compassion; •.-.People who have ,the unhappy, capacity to: excite .such. Idolatry be-, long to a richer and wider world. . • ilt must be a terrible thing to bo utterly idependent oh'one human being ere oho' can ’enjoy a sunset, or a gem of literature; to'”'feel that the whole world is an arid desert imihedi-, ately the light of- one omnipotent, presence is withdrawn. Never to know the luxury of belonging th oneselfi ' i : Hever to close the door on one’s own sblitudh and review the pageant’ of Life with one’s own eyes; nor rest from the turmolj 6t too closely impinging human 1 associations and gain the 1 peace ! !h self-, communion. Such is the prison in which the emotional autocrat would fain incarcerate herself and her victim. And .when the victim escapes' with a shudder, the poor would-be gaoler remains locked in behind the prison bars she has herself erected. Having banked ,on the one being, she’ becomes temperamentally bankrupt by that one overwhelming Ipss. For her there is no wide, world of the mind and) spirit in which to wander alone' 4 and of her own free will, savouring the stimulus of mental and temperamental emancipation,. Her reactions to Life and Nature have all been reflexes, as it wore, of the reactions of a larger soul. For your possessive type; always, .fastens, on to a, nature richer than.its. own, and calmly expects to annex its .cosmopol-itan-garnered wealth for her own private enjoyment. Instead of account- _ inig herself lucky that an essentially gregarious type can be bothered even now and again with her jealous importunities, she thinks her “devotion” should be deemed sufficient compensation for her most unreasonable: tantrums'. And is wounded unto; death;' when the victim of her would-Jye. ownership abandons her to her harrow fate. .. . ..... v .._ .. ... i If there Is one lesson we women have yet to learn before all .others,, it ,ls to concede to our fellow-beings tne right to their own Individual entity. Let us-mix cheerfully in the social, cosmos, and. shun like the plague that fatal propensity to invest all pur emotional capital in stocks over which we can have no ultimate control., >Let pride—sheer, ' dccent ) self-respecting pride—teach us.that other people belong primarily to themselves, and so shape our own more independent and therefore richer lives accordingly.