WOMEN AND ADMIRATION

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXII, Issue 7302, 5 December 1910, Page 9

WOMEN AND ADMIRATION

IS IT GOOD FOB THEM? rSOiI.OUJI LADV COiIRESPONDEST. LONDON, October 21. More than that—it is nece.-sary. -that is to say, it is essential mat uie woman i. ho is to bo young even Tu old ageana sweet yoiun is a delightsome tuing m a woman not young in years—should nave admiration bestowed on her sometimes.

Tnere are few people whom one cannot aamlre in some direction, with the eyes to see' good points and the heart to appreciate lueir value. nut -there are just a few, I grant, whose charms are exceedingly- difficult to locate—women to whom one would as soon think of paying a pretty compliment as dancing a jig with. Still, its not unreasonable to think that even those, caught young, might have had their ill ways mended with the softening gentleness of a word of praise. One such X have in my mind—only one example of many. She is hard as a piece of iron, with that deadly, caustic tongue that makes game (and cleverly so that one may laugh, perhaps) of anything that her narrow mind does not approve; so blase that, though she be one's guest, she cannot help criticising a play in such a way that the enjoyment of her fellow guests is at an end instantly; so strong that she can t feel sympathy for the many -illnesses and ailments that assail the less iortunato beings. , " , To end her uj>, she is moneyed, intellectual. and alone, yet enjoys life in her own way. There's one being now who might box the ears of one who said: “What a becoming hat you have on!” And I tremble to think of saying, “I wish you would part your hair in the middle—then you would look Madonna—von have such lovely hair. Women arc apt to be insincere intheir desire to be more than ordinarily polite to their own sex, so that a comnlihient from a woman to a woman must be quietly done as well as prettily if its to bo believed. _ . The gushing woman is an atrocious creature, and nothing is more unlovely than the truly terrible desire of such to stand well with everyone. She cannot hope to do so for long, for Rush is an unsubstantial _things and tactless, and tactlessness always ends by tripping over itself. . ■ Between "gush” and the beautiful warm-hearted interest that every woman ought to take in other women lies a gulf . unfathomable, however. One is a real thing, and. the- other a mockery. Tact, it is believed, is a gift that must ho bestowed by kind fairies at birth, and that can't he bargained for or bought, or indeed, acquired in any way hut as a gift. ■ ■ . , , , , This is true to a certain extent, hot as I’ve never met, and dare swear my readers never have, the man or woman who didn’t believe themselves models of tact, it would do no one any harm to keep in bright trim the virtue 'of unselfish "kindness, which covers many a blemish and makes, one so sensitive to the joys and sorrows of others that it would seem terrible indeed to dream of hurting them through thoughtlessness. Tact, of course, has this great and sterling charm—it has an- intuition and can see, at once, what lesser virtues take an age to fathom and so lose the opportunity to help. It’s not at all a had scheme to leave other people—there are' always armies of them !—the task of pointing out unpleasant happenings and ugly truths, unless those things must he set right for tho public good. Then, indeed, is the time to take one’s courage in one's two hands, and get the worst over quickly. .But under ordinary circumstances it isn’t necessary for a plain womanly woman — whoso realm is in her home and. her friends —to meddle! . V 1 , It’s impo-ssible for the woman of small mind and mean'perceptions to praise—it would bo foreign to her nature altogether and one could not imagine the praise to be anything but niggardly and watery from such a source. Yet, so does the generous habit react upon the hestnwer that meanness would eventually fall before it. . There can he no doubt that admiration b'esfowed —however small he the opportunity—acts, as does sunshine on a flower. It makes life worth while to a weary worker or to a woman in sorrow, and it wouldn’t be too much I to say that it acts as a great moral strengthener for the Weak woman.

-We’re, all children more or less in the interior of our minds, and many things that ; please -ns as children don’t alter much in essentials as the years go by. We always hate to ho blamed, hate to be suspected, hate to ho, cold-shouldered. It was a dear pleasure, in the bid days, to have our hai’r-ribbons admired, our dainty frocks and shoes. Why, then, and not now? •

If the answer be that we 1 ought to have outgrown, the' old and foolish qualities, then a 1 further "cry mus Che. “Bet's get back to childhood's Rta.nd.arcl, then, for ,we were warm-hearted and hacT only the failings of youth in those days—not the cruel hardness tliat sees nothing worth praising, and that-lets weariness and faint-heartedness harass, for want of ; the dear tact that would.heal with comradely admiration!” ■ ■■■':■