ROMANCE STILL LIVES.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIII, Issue 19384, 20 July 1926, Page 7

ROMANCE STILL LIVES.

Every woman capable of strong feeling and endowed with imagination is romantic at heart, disguisa it "how she will. This trait not only contributes much to the charm of a woman's character — it imparts something beautiful or thrilling to perhaps quite ordinary characters or incidents. A highly romantic nature is associated by some minds with silliness and folly. Life, to some people, is a mere calculation; expediency is their maxim, propriety their rule, profit ease or comfort their aim. They have at least one advantage. Minds of a higher tone and hearts of a greater sensibility are harassed, wounded and even withered in their passage through life. Harder and less delicate souls proceed on their way neither chilled by the coldness, nor disillusioned by the meanness and selfishness of the world. We often hear it said that romance is dead—that it died, with chivalry, with the passing of " the good old days." But what nonsense it all is. Once a lady gave her glove to adorn her knight's helmet on the tournament field. Is it less romantic to tie his colours to his cap at a point-to-point race meeting ? Was a gallant who tip-toed toward his inamorata, in brocaded waistcoat and silken hose, begging she would do him the favour to step a measure, more romantic a companion than he who has just dropped from the skies, having probed behind the clouds, and soared above the birds and the mountains, or he who has mastered the mysteries of the ocean? Was it more romantic to jog for miles along a country lane behind a lover on it tired horse than it is to fly from the irate parent in a shining thing of aluminium, or tear out into the lovely country places clasping a young man's waist as ho sits in front on a motor-cycle No, romance is not dead, bu evt generation it wears a ciifferent garment. We must be on the lookout not to miss 'it.