HER ROYAL HIGHNESS WOMAN.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 11686, 22 June 1901, Page 1 (Supplement)

HER ROYAL HIGHNESS WOMAN.

(FROM THE LITERARY WOMAN.)

Always entertaining, often epigrammatic, not seldom instructive, Max O'Kell's studies in Her Royal Highness Woman form a volume destined, beyond a doubt, to figure largely as the topic of drawing-room conversation throughout the coming season. The book abundantly bears out the witty paraphrase with which it opens : "1 urn a until, and everything that concerns woman interests me." Being dedicated to " married men and women, and to young men and women contemplating matrimony," it naturally deals largely with the relations between the sexes, and his treatment of this phase of his vast subject is marked by a cosmopolitan tone that add.; immensely to its interest. The theory and practice of married life as it is found to-day in France, England, and America, iurnisli him with data, for many racy chapters. When in the course of his investigations lie encounters a stock problem, lie iaces it boldly, and solves if with an air of certainty calculated to impress waverers. "A man," he affirms, "ready loves only once." In regard to a woman he displays a little diffidence. "I believe that a woman can love more than once." The uncertainty here befits the exigencies of the case, indeed, in one of his opening paragraphs the author frankly disclaims the ability to understand women, and the same admission is reiterated at suitable intervals.

It is true that the leaders of thought in Prance, as in any other country, have long ago proclaimed that woman was the only problem it would never be given to man to solve. It is true that they have all tried and all failed, and that they acknowledge it, but they arc trying still.

This characteristic of woman is probably, after all, what make., her ever so interesting to us. Nothing is more different from a woman than another woman. Nothing is mote different from v. wo'.ft, than thai very woman herself. The very moment we think we know her, she slips through our fingers and si..nils in from of us an absolute stranger. And so it. should be so.

The palm of beauty lie accords to Hungarian and Irish women, while regretfully admitting that the board of French women is praised by his compatriots only. From the artistic standpoint the Spanish woman does not appeal to him so strongly ay she has done to many writers. The one happy land where there exists no hopelessly, tinredeemahly plain woman lie holds to be the United States; "for in that country, let ti woman have as unpleasant a face as possible, as bad a figure as ' they make them.' there is an air of independence, a. deliberate gait, a pair of intelligent eyes, that will go it long way towards making you forget or overlook the shortcomings of the body.'' As to the age at which a woman attains the zenith of her charm, he gives expression to sentiments still more original. II is to the middle-aged woman that the highest honours are accorded.

Now, a. woman should marry young, very young even, so that her husband should enjoy all tho different phases of her beauty, from the beauty of girlhood to that second youth, or matronly beauty, which to my mind is perhaps the best of all. The Watleau of eighteen will become a Rubens at forty. It is. perhaps, at forty that a woman is most strikingly beautiful, and she is almost invariably so when sho has taken care of herself, and has been loved and petted by husband and children alike. Tt is then that sho knows how to make the best, of herself, that she best understands how to exercise her gifts and charms in the most effective manner.

It is at forty that she enjoys the grace of perfect self-possession. She lias tact, and drosses faultlessly. Her knowledge of the world, her experience, of life, all help to make her a more delightful companion than ever. The love she lias inspired i? written on ev.-;y one of her features. Her eyes sparkle with joy. her mouth expresses the ecstasy of past and present b'i-.s, and also gratitude for the kisses that hue been impressed upon it. Yes, the woman of forty is a joy, an intoxicating and incomparable joy, to a husband. That woman is evenmore beautiful physically than she ever was, and her beauty is of such a different type from what ii was at twenty that I can very well understand how a husband can seriously fall in love with Ids wife a second time. All this is truth, my dear fellow. And don't even be afraid of white hair. With a good complexion, a cheerful expression, and two big black eyes, nothing goes better than white hair, and the whiter it is the better.

All lady readers will be interested in the portrait of the author's ideal woman:

The woman I lovo is the female woman that I would protect and cherish in return for all the sweet attention she would pay me, and which would enable mo to cheerfully fight the battle of life, iiow to describe her I hardly know.

Should she be beautiful? Not necessarily. Pretty? Yes, rather. Good figure? Decidedly. Clever? IFm- -yes. Cheerful? By all means. Punctual? Like a military man. Serious? Not too much. Frivolous? Yes, just a little. Of a scientific turn of mind? B-r-r! no; I should shudder at the idea of it. Of an artistic nature, then, with literary taste-? Yes, certainly. But, above all, a keen, sensible, tactful little woman who would make it the business of her life to study me, .:-..• f would make it the business of my life to study her; a. woman who could lie in turn according to circumstance.-;, a housewife, a counsellor, a " pal," a wife, a sweetheart, a nurse, a patient, the sunshine of my life, and always a confidante, a friend, and a partner.