SWEET NOTHINGS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXII, Issue 19125, 17 September 1925, Page 13

SWEET NOTHINGS.

From ( the darkness of the seats behind us came soft murmurings.

" "Come on," said my friend, "let's move. ... I can't stand this absurd

twaddle any longer 1"

I agreed, for I felt something of the guilt of a discovered eavesdropper. But—"absurd twaddle?" I wonder.

Is it possible to classify something as absurd which has been a featuro of every love affair since the Creation? I think not. When a lover says something illogical and flowery, which sounds ridiculous to an outsider, it is the latter who is deceived. For the speaker seldom literally means what he says. His extravagance of phrase simply serves to convey indirectly a little of the deep emotion which he feels—ke is striving to express the inexpressible, says a romantic modern.

Something tells him that he* will be understood; his language is a cods which you, as an uninterested party, are not expected or desired to interpret. After all, some of the most glorious and thrilling poetry in the world depends more for its appeal on the beauty and the music of the mood it induces and the responsive chords it touches than on its sense as a plain statement of fact. Man cannot live on sense alone!

We are assured by the apostles of efficiency. however, that "sweet nothings" are on the wane; that they cannot survive the ruthless realism of this century. But I do not believe it. "Sweet nothings," I think, will always be the prelude at least to most love affairs, for they serve the lover the useful purpose. of showing him which way the wind blows! If ever they should have an end,, it will mean that youth, carries an old heart in a young body.