THE WISDOM OF RESERVE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXI, Issue 18629, 9 February 1924, Page 6 (Supplement)

THE WISDOM OF RESERVE.

We are very proud of our English reserve, even the most impulsive and selfrevealing of us who have it not (observes a contemporary). Of no other nation do they tell this romantic; story of iron selfcontrol, of warm hearts beneath the casual manner, of profound stirrings under the calm exterior. Reserve, because it is to many of us so difficult, because it is unmistakably a mark of great Englishmen and English women, is associated for ever with the heroic. Yet reserve is sometimes to be deplored. Hundreds of women rarely allow anyone to see beneath the surface of their minds for one moment. They use a cheerful expression and pleasant, if trivial, conversation as a shield against the outsider's approach. And, for a variety of reasons, extreme sensitiveness perhaps, or extreme laziness, they regard most people as " outsiders" not socially, but spiritually. Either they dread "the discovery of the truth about their own probably lovable selves, # or they don't want to be bothered by vivid and actual relationships. They prefer to blur humanity over in a < mass of faces upon which they are quite ready to —non-committally. ; Reserve is rarely present in any charactor which is no sort of fineness. It accompanies wisdom, for though knaves may have it, Sind they are usually then courageous knaves, fools have not. Reserve as admirable as a brake upon the emotions; it is regrettable when it makes for inaccessibility.