CHIT CHAT

New Zealand Times, Volume LXXI, Issue 4366, 25 May 1901, Page 4 (Supplement)

CHIT CHAT

MAN NEEDS WOMAN'S LOVE. It is not to .sweep, make the bods, darn the socks, and cook tho moaJ.s chiefly that a man wants a wife. Such things are important, and the wise young jnon of slender means will took after them. But what the tr io man wants in a wife is her companionship, sympathy, and love. The way of life has many tireary places in it, and a man needs a wile to go witn him. A woman who will put her lips to Ills ear and whisper words of -onnsel, and her hand to his heart and impart an inspiration, she will Help him to light against poverty and sin. All through life, through storm, and through sunshine, conflict and victory, through adverse and Enough favouring winds, man needs a woman’s love. THE TEN MARRIAGE COMMANDMENTS. A certain well-known lady recently advocated tho opening of schools for matrimony. * She would have the schools for matrimony.include all tho branches of household or mental or moral science Unit go to make up domestic happiness. In the category of virtues that 'ic to make up a good wife this lady includes : How to cook. How to sew. How to take care of children. How to preserve, your health. How to preserve your beauty. How to get on with your husband’s and your own relatives. How to keep your servants. How to receive pleasantly the unexpected guest your husband brings homo “without a word of notice.” How to be kind, though frank. How to keep no secrets from your husband, and to keep them from everyone else in the world.

How to economise without being niggardly. How to hold your tongue wnen your husband is angry. These and many more matrimonial arts our worthy friend would have taught in the schools for matrimony. THE UNMUSICAL HUSBAND. I\hat greater affliction lor a musical wife than to find that her husband hates the sound of her violin or piano, and, worse than even this, fails to uu•derstand good music when he hears it, and prefers music-hall jingle to music that the world is the better for having heard ?

Before marriage lie is often so much in lovo that he would listen admiringly to her performances on the big drum or a breach horn with pleasure* or sit at her side through a severely classical concert lost in the happiest of dreams; but after marriage—well, it’s different, somehow, and he has less reticence in telling her his real views on many subjects on which ho has hitherto been silent, and his ideas on home music are apt to be more unguarded.

One amiable but resolute husband 1 hear of, finding his wife still devoted her time to the piano, despite his dislike to its noise, as he expressed it, took the matter -into his own hands by cutting all the hammers out of it, and burning them, and as they were in a distant and lonoly colony there was a complete end to the music of the future, as there was no other piano nearer than 200 miles. Another husband used to talk at the top of his voice through his wife’s singing, while another conceded so far as to take her up to the opera, but used to sleep so peacefully and snore so loudly through it all that his wife had to stop at home. Men cf these curious and dogmatic ideas had much better remain unmarried, or at least do before marriage as thev mean to do after. This would prevent great disillusion on both sides. WHAT NOTED PEOPLE EAT. ‘'Life and Beauty” lias boon writing to some well-known people to discover how they prolong their youth and preserve their powers. Naturally, perhaps, these questions turned on matters of diet, and hence wo find answers as diverse as the people themselves. Thus, Mi's Loiia_Ashwe.il says she finds “plain food with plenty of vegetables and no sweets and a littio Burgundy” the best fare. Against this is the opinion of brilliant Mr Benjamin Swift:—“l am a strong believer in fish and wheateu bread. I avoid mutton and veal, and such vegetables as onions, cabbage, and cucumber. A certain amount of flesh is, I believe, a daily necessity for every hard worker; but he should no doubt regu'ato his diet according to the season.” As might doubtless have been expected, the gentleman 'who wrote “Flames’"' and “The Green Carnation,” is decidedly lachrymose.

lie confesses; —“Almost everything has disagreed with me at one time cr another. I think most of us cat far too much. Although as I am seldom free from dysponsia for many days tovether, I can scarcely claim to ho a guide to health, I may say that the less liquid I take the better I am. I find strong tea, marmalade, champagne, aerated waters, muffins, ice pudding, and. in fact, almost everything I am really fond of, disastrous to my health. “I have tried vegetarianism in a monastery in Africa, and found it most dangerous to internal comfort. How Mr Shaw can he so wittv on boiled cabbage and lentils I can’t imagine. Personally I never expect to he nerraancntlv free from indigestion till I eeaso from eating and drinking.” Beyond a dislike of tea, Mr Arthur Morrison, author rf "laics cf Mean Streets,” has no fads, whereas happy “John Strange 'Winter” is most explicit, and savs :

“I drink tea —good China tea —coffee with milk, ami whisky and soda. I eat fish every day, and also some kind of salad dressed with oil and vinegar, as great a variety of meat as can be obtained, barring mutton, which I in-

tensely dislike (as also I do any form cf rechauffe). “I eat very little rubbish, not many made dishes, no “read, scarce!v touch, butter, except such as is used in cooking, and I never take any form of pudding, and very rarely any form of pastry. ‘•_\lv only outbreak in the shape of pudding is that which hails from Yorkshire, and, being a Yorkshire woman, I find this the hardest of all to resist. I never drink between meals; I am never thirsty except at tho proper time. I do not care very much for fruit, but I regularly oat green vegetables, and never touch potatoes.” Miss Violet Hunt makes a curious point:—“A little of everything and much of nothing seems to me to ho a good rule, and a good digestion, like a good child, should not be spoilt or pampered or encouraged in any way to consider itself. The healthiest people I know are those who ignore their digestion, tending, however, a little to asceticism in diet. I hare a theory that diet affects the depth and colour of people’s eves—a diet of porridge darkens them.”