AUTHORS AND THEIR VIEWS

New Zealand Herald, Volume LIX, Issue 18275, 16 December 1922, Page 6 (Supplement)

AUTHORS AND THEIR VIEWS

DRESS AND OLD AGE. " \s one gets older looks are chiefly a matter of dress. When you take pains with vour clothes, no woman of your age looks'better; but when you wander out in a rather seedy black dress, with a dejected face under a hat that has seen better davs, vou can't wonder at what mv friend, Mrs. Bell, said after meeting | you one wet day: " Eh, pair auld buddy; she's an awfu' worn't look in' wumman; it fair makes me no weel to look at her! " " Yes. Ann. but you shouldn't have laughed.' T don't like that Mrs. Bell. She's a forward woman and you spoil her." , ~ ~ " Oh, I told her you weren t really old, but those women" are so surprisingly young. They have grown-up families and hordes "of grandchildren, and you think they are at least 70 and they turn out to be 50. Of course, it was rather disrespectful of her to call you ' puir auld buddy.' but the ' awful worn't lookin',' was such an exact description of you doing good works on a wet day in your old clothes that I had to laugh." THE CLERGY. " A lazy lot " she called them. "No wan of them does a decent day's work. If it was me, I wad make a' the minister's pollismen as well, and that wad save some o' the country's siller." She condescended to say that she liked your lather's preaching, though her reason for it was not very flattering. " I like him hecause lie's not what ye ca* a scholarly preacher. I dinna like thae icholan, they're michty dull. I like the kind of minister that misca's the deevil for about twenty mecnits and then stops."

THE MODERN BOOK. " I don't think I'm ill to please " said Mrs. Douglas, " but I do like a book that j is clean and kind. I put down each of those books in disgust; they're both dull and indecent. Is it easier to be clever and nasty than clever and clean ? " | " 01).. much." said Ann promptly. "It's , a very hard thing to write a book that is j pleasant without being ma-wkish, where- j as any fool can be nasty and can earn j a reputation of sorts by writing what Davie used to call " hot stuff." " Well. I wish someone would arise j who would write for the middle-aged an 1 ! elderly; thero are a great many in the; world, and they are neglected by nearly everyone—fashion writers, fiction writer. l ;, play" writers —no one caters for them. I like domestic fiction, gentle but not ' drivelling, good character drawing and a love story that ends all right." "In other words," said Ann " good 1 print and a happy ending." 1 " Ann and Her Mother." > —0. Douglas. ! 0 I THE PIONEERS. ■ "How primitive all our notions were! Few of the boys owned overcoats, and the same suit served each of us for ' summer and winter alike. In lieu of ulsters, most of us wore long, grey-col-oured woollen scarves wound about our heads and necks, scarves which our I mothers, sisters, or sweethearts had . knitted for us. Onr footwear continued to be boots of the tall cavalry model ' with pointed toes and high heels. Our collars were either homemade ginghams ' or ' boughten ' ones of paper at 15 i cents a box. Some men went so far as to wear ' dickies,' false shirt fronts, made of paper, but this was considered j ' a silly cheat. No one in our neighbourhood ever saw a tailor-made suit, and * nottu'ng that we wore fitted—our clothes J morely enclosed ns. . . . The lack of room' in our house is brought painfully to my mind a* I recall that my sick sister lay for a week or two in a corner of our living room with all the roise and j bustle of the family going on around her. . Her own attic chamber was unwarmed i - (like most of all her girl friends) ; and . so she was forced to be near the kitchen stove. My father was counted a good 1 and successful farmer. Our neighbours r all lived in the same restricted fashion as 5 ourselves, in barren little houses of wood , or stone, owning few books reading only i weekly papers. It was a pure democr racy." \ " A Son of The Middle Border." i —H. Garland.