THE SORROWS OF SIMMER.

Otago Witness, Issue 2660, 8 March 1905, Page 74

THE SORROWS OF SIMMER.

Each step which leads us away from simplicity of life leads us also away from jbappmess is really my t.^xt. On it I would found a gospel of life which would be only new in the sense that the oldest truths are often new — i.e., unused.

In winter we long for summer, making it indeed "the winter of our discontent." Yet the first really hot day finds us grumbling. "Exhausted with the heat" ; "quite unable to eat, don't you know" — creams are bilious, and fruits and salads in excess are "upsetting" — meat is loathly ! What are we to do?

Again, as the tardy spring kept us waiting to w.?ar oiir frocks of Harris linen and gowns of French muslin, now impatient we were for summer sun and summer heat ! But the hot days find us toiling over the tucked and laced underskirts to wear below our seeming simplicity of linen and muslin frocks — hot, red, cross, and tired. Summer also has its sorrows, and we, bending over the ironing board ironing our elaborate underskirts, or vowing vengeance on the tired "general" who Jias scorched the lace and torn the frill, are no nearer happiness than in waiting winter. Uponi my word, I often think that the seasons do not vary our pleasures, but our grumbles — or do we take our pleasure in grumbling? "Man never is, but always to be, blessed." It is always the tur,n of the road, always that toy on the top shelf. Happiness is all we want ; then why not be happy? Why load our underskirts with miles of tucking and yards of lace unless we can afford to ''put them out," and thus help some one else to earn their living through our little personal daintiness? If we cannot only afford to have costly lingerie, but can also afford to pay someone to wash and iron it, then, and then only, we are justifying our expenditure, and we save it from coming under the head of either folly or extravagance. But if, on the other hand, these frills and furbelows must be laundered at home, and either the overworked general is to be scolded for doing them badly, or we are to do them ourselves, and get overtired and cross and hot in the process, then I am of opinion that the game is not worth the candle, and this one at l.?ast of our summer sorrows is of our own making. It is, moreover, one which a little practical '"thinking-out" the matter in planning our summer garments may relieve us of.

You see, the great central truth which I want to eet at is this — reducing our unnecessary cares and toils down to the smallest possible point in order to secure that margin for honest, peaceful rest and enjoyment which should be ours. Clear away the inventions of man, or woman, to leave ourselves free for the creations of God : rule off the arbitrary, ever-increas-ing demands of society, and leave a clear space for Nature. There is only a certain amount of time available for all of us. We can do no more than be happy, and try to make others happy. To me it seems that we shall best attain that desirable end by planning our lives, not by the habits, customs, and expenses of our set, but by our own individual means and surroundings ; to simplify our dress, food, and habits of life down to the point at which we find ourselves able to care a little for the brain as well as the stomach, the spirit as well as the body. The body seems to me threatening tc absorb far too much time, toil, and care We might be balloons, with a button head,- so far as the relative amount of time and thought we spend on brain and body is concerned. No sooner are we out of bed than we begin to eat and drink — first thing in the morning, last thing at night. No sooner are the dishes washer! from one meal than it is time to prepare another ! Sorrows of summer, hot, tired, eross — how the three adjectives run together — cause and effect : is there no remedy? Might we not snip something out of the day's food programme— as well as something off the week's washing list?

Perhaps comparison with the wise individualism and simple housekeeping of Continental housewives has intensified) what has always been a mute rebellion with me against the unnecessary toil and moil of our modern middle-class existence. My protest against unnecessary washing and ironing might have been extended to all the endless array of tray cloths and d'oyleys necessitated by our early tea— ''11 o'clock, — and supper. Have you ever considered how these silly little snacks, of ours add to the toils* of washing an! ironing days, let alone the endless wash-in^s-up of cups and saucers, etc

Do we work so awfully h-vd that a goo 3 bieakfast will not sustain fainting nature

until lunch time? It really dons seem a little absurd that at 11 we are ready again to eat and drink. Tea, bread and butter, biscuits ; or is it scones and cake? and shall we make (in winter) just a piece or two of hot buttered toast? Mary, in the kitchen or laundry, works far harder, but we don't expect her to require morning tea. What have we done i«p town all the morning? Looked in at one or two of the sales of the dying summer, and seen the pr/?tty fripperies, that were luxuries in spring, thrown out, dirt cheap, in. autumn : the very thing we were dying to possess then we have not even a careless glance for now — fearful rubbish ! we hastily decided, and hurried on, to linger longingly over the new autumn millinery at Blank and Dash's, or the Incroyabie coats at the X V Z. It's such tiring work, don't you know. At 11.30 one is dying for a cup of tea. Then the cakes at the tea rooms are always so nice, aud you are sure to meet a lot of people you know there. Well, afterwards, there was a book to change at the Athenaeum, and a pin to take to the jeweller's, and some music to look over at the rooms, so that really it was an awfully tiring morning, and one is quite ready for a good lunch, so long as it is something cool and nice — it is so fearfully tiring rushing about town.

" But it's very funny how the ones who stay at home seem to think that they do all the work," is a remark one hears so often. Do the things done quietly and silently in the house ever count except to those who do them? We come and go, you and I ; we are so busy, we are so worried ; the weather is annoying, people in the shops are so stupid, the streets are hot and dusty, or cold and wet, and we claim for it all — sorrows of summei and waitings of winter — the constant sympathy of those who only stay at home.

Our nice cool lunch, that made some one hot and tired to prepare, is duly enjoyed, andi by 4 o'clock, at home or abroad, receiving in our drawing room or '"at home" in some one else's, we are ready for afternoon tea, and actually fancy we ark in need of" it ! Another two hours of busy idleness finds us with half an hour to spare to rest and chat over the afternoon's toils before dinner. Saving dined more or less well, we have still the evening before us, and whether it is a quiet evening in our own home or a "mixed evening" somewhere else ; whether it is a bridge party or a theatre party, a musicale or a dance, be uite sure there is a supper fitted to the occasion, and the amount of recuperation necessary to body and brain contained in the programme — and so at last to bed.

Now of all that long day, whether we were busy toilers ironing our own blouses and helping to cook our own meals, or merely busy idlers using and consuming what others prepared for us, we have managed to dispose of three good, substantial meals and three excellent little casuals in the brief space of our workaday hours.

Of all the toil needful to the day's existence on such lines, how much was devoted to the sustenance of the spirit or the development of the intellect? Did I not say that the relative proportion of bodily cares to mental was that of a balloon to a button? How can we reverse the order of existence, and is it not worth while trying?