LADIES' GOSSIP.

Otago Witness, Issue 2685, 30 August 1905, Page 65

LADIES' GOSSIP.

— The soirows of Queen Natalie* are fresh in mind. The tenible tiugedy at Belgrade, in Avhich her only son Alexander, King of Seivia, perished \\ith Diaga, his Queen, at the instance oi the bloodthirsty regicides by whom King Peter is new siu'rounded, has made us all mindful of the sorrows of the former Quc?n ot Servia. When quite a girl &he was affianced to Colonel Ccujstantinovics ot the Servian army; but a few days prior to the date fix-eel for the wedding she met Milan, King of Servia as he was to be. Thn newcomer" infatuated by her beauh . and w ith an eye' too, upon her immense private fortune, 1 supplanted hi' S cousin, and in;>de the girl Ciovsn Flinches of Kcivin. .pul aoon afterwards Queen. Everybody leuie-nibers the dismal tiagedy which followed: hem Milan, finding that he could not take his I wife's money from her, tired, made life impossible for her at the capital, and then, when she fled in horror from him stole her son. the ill-fated Alexander, fiom her, and, by the basest villainy prociucd a divorce, which was afterwards annulled as illegal. The beautiful Natalie's life was one long martyrdom, culminating in the frightful spectacle at the royal palace in Belgrade nearly two years ago, when King and Queen, and heir to the thione. and all who had remained faithful to the misguided couple, weie done to death by a band v£ conspiratois. — Are we to regard with satisfaction or dismay the statement that woman has lost

the art of conversation ? asks a lady scribe. We are inclined to the opinion that the former feeling will predominate if, by the "art," we^are to understand those methods of, manufacturing conversation practised by our forbears, when place, circumstance, even the days of the week, governed the 'polite art," and when there- was a, broad line between the talk which was "becomng" in the unmarried girl and her married sister. At the, present day conveisation is it least unforced and natural, while at imes it reaches an intelligent altitude, ivhich would have horrified an age in which jirls were expected to bids the light of heir conversational brilliance under a nishel. — The German Crown Prince was, as a •mail boy, about as plain-spoken as Ills econd cousin, the Prince of Wales, if he. stories told of him may be believed. )ne of his biographers has recorded that, hortly after Prince Bismarck was disnissed, the little boy was talking to his ather, and in the course of conversation aMj with. cliiMieh naivete,, ''Philter* they

say that now you -will be able to tell the people what to do all by yourself. You'll enjoy that, won't you?"' Everyone knows the remarkably close intimacy and affection which have always existed between tbe Kaiserin and her ihildren, and how fully the feeling is reciprocated Mas shown one day when the Crown Prince was told that all people axe sinners, "'lly father may be a sinner," he replied, hotly, ''but I know my mother is not!" — Few women, at some time of their lives, have not experienced a wish to be beautiful, and many are the artificial aids called in to attain this desire. From a correspondent, who signs herself ''A Rosy London Girl," the following notes on beauty have been received, and as all ths directions are eminently sensible they are given for the benefit of other girls: — "To have a natural healthy colour all clothes should ba loose and comfortable, as light lacing is the cause, of half the delicate girls and bad complexions. Temperance in all things is a splendid motto for a healthy <i»<3 laapgy life; fre&li air will cure nearly

all ills, and everyone should try tT <?njoy one or t\io hoius walk cvoiy <fi<u. Cleanliness, as everyone knows, is e c 6cntial, and bedrooms must be t^II ventilated. Deep breathing (keeping the mouth closed) is splendid for good health, and here you get the benefit of 100s a clothing. A little tooling medicine should be taken \shen needed. I have, by the advice of a good mother, tiied to follow this mode of life. find my complexion i<- a mv^tery to a number of ghls. while many have praised my figure, proving that natural beauty is always best. Some people are naturally p;ile, but even then the eyes should he bright and the skin, healthy Thi.s, with the practice of ioal Chi isti.m charity, wii] make the plainest face lovely."'

— The young King of Spain undoubtedly has been the subject ot a great deal of cnnveiMtion among the sisters of King Edward, and it i< believed (*ayv the Liverpool Post's London correspondent) that Princess Hemy of Battenberg intimated that her daughter. Princess Ena, v, jb eligible, and sho would certainly be moi'e richly dowered than h-er cousin, a« she is the heiress of the Empress Eugenic. But whilst in England the attentions of Kin;; Alfonso were concentrated 0:1 Pii.ic-t-s Patricia. At thp gala performance at the Italian opera she sat immediately behind I the. Sovereigns, and the Spanish King kept constantly turning round to address her, and she was placed next him at the little supper party which w.ns held before the final excerpt from "Les Huguenot«." Princess Patricia is a. delightful girl, who has flirted considerably with her father's staff, dances with energy, and has pkntv of individuality, which would have full scope if she became Queen Consort of the vivacious j'oung Spanish Sovereign. — When the young lody in her te°ns arrives at that eventful period at which it is customary and pioper fo# her to have her hair up, she says good-bye to oao of the principal charms Nature has endowed her with ; for it never comes down again with equal beauty. - Its natural waves have gone, and when it falls it falls twisted and distorted. It may be brushed and combed, oiled and worked, by the most skilful hands, yet it is never the same as before it was rolled up. As in th^ ca&& of many a man. and many a woman too, its elevation to dignity has involved Its fall from grace, beauty, and natural virtue. Of course, there ar-e cases in which the doing up of the hair (I do not mean in the sense of repair) may, like the veiling of the face, be advantageous. But that is only when Nature seems to have failed, and art step* in to make good her shortcomings or hide unpleasant truths which she is indiscreetly revealing. For the hair is one of Nature's most indiscreet confidants, ever ready to blurt out facts about health, and even character, as well as age, that its owner would rather leave unremarked. — Harry Furniss, in the Gentlewoman. — The importance of the birth of Prince Gustavus Adolphus did not pass unnoted at the Scandinavian Court. To the christening in one of the great apartments of the royal palace all the representatives of t>he. Powers were invited, and. the then German Emperor, great-grandfather of the babe, was a godfather, and attended by proxy. Need "it be said how proud were the Crown Prince and Princess of their first-born'/ But if possible the King and Queen were still more proud. Sir Horace Rumbold, who was the British representative in Stockholm at the time, and was present at the christening, tells a delightful story of the function. The King swoie by his ancestors that he would carry his grandson into the presence of the assembled dignitaries, and the Queen was equally determined that hers should be the privilege. It is no nee arguing in a matter of this sort with, the woman you love ; you have to give way. and although the King seemed to think that some consfitutiondl principle was involved, he decided to let the constitution go hang, or, rather, the Queen decided for him. And in they solemnly stalked together, into the presence of the representatives of the Powers, she carrying the baby, he striding at her side arid shading its eyes with his gigantic cocked hat and feathers. — The fact must not be ignored (writes "Yetta" in the Liverpool Mercury) that love and matrimony aie not for every woman. We may say alas ! and would that it were ; but that does not alter what is an undoubted fact, that il is impossible, so it is just as well that we should learn to make the best of our lives a-nd accept the good the gods offer with the best grace we can. We have been considering the lot of married women and women workers. Now let us look at the lives of the young people not necessarily compelled to work for their living. The love of sport, which has come to be the characteristic of our girls, forms a favourits text from which to deliver homilies full of warning. Its results are said to be the adoption of men's slang, and of sporting and stable talk, a mannish stare, and a strident, self-asserting voice. In the past this love of sport has been recognised as one of the safeguards of our British youth. It has not turned our young men into stable boj-s, jockeys, and prize fighters, nor unfitted them for serious work, and there is nothing to show that, in moderation, of course, it will have other than a healthy effect upon our girls. A well-developed body is in no way inconsistent with a refined nature, and the girl who plays hockey and golf may be quite as womanly as tho girl who spent her clays over an embroidery frame. She is almost certain, indeed, to have an additional robustness of character as well as body, such as could not be developed in the more or less enervating atmosphere of sheltered drawing rooms, and sho will bring back with her to her work something of the freshness and the vigour of the bracing air and the wind-swept course. Whatever our lives, whatever our work, we do not ask for unqualified prai?e, while wo deprecate unqualified condemnation. — Lack of Sentiment in Modern —* Times. — > It has become the fashioa of late jears

to sneer at sentiment, and to label any pliow of kehng "bad toim.'' Eve. .since the days ot Ihe eighteenth-century beaux, ■ttho seem to have thought suithnent almost the only theme for discussion in tho pieaence of the ladies, ancl who prated and rhymed about the tender passion in and out of season, the reaction towards an extremely practical outlook on life has been growing more ancl more intense. The man of to-day boasts of his level-headedness, Lis strength of mind, and inability to be distracted from the pursuit of the main chanre by sentiment il considerations. He still falls in love, ot course ; but he does so without displaying any of the raptures or extravagances ot old-fashioned lovers.

He has almost ceased to write loveletters,, preferring to communicate with bis Best Girl by wire or telephone — l'.ctlinds which combine the advantages ol \ inj, tune and ot bei.iu safe and 11011(ommitting. The up-to-date youth has little sympathy with the tenderness with which his ancestors regarded the lock ot hair, or flower, or old glove bestowed upon them by their lady-loves, and is well awaie that Enid, for her part, is apt to measure the depth of bis affection by the money value oi' the gilts he presents to her. The girl 01 the period is, in fact, in danger of developing into as worldly and sentimentkss a thing as the man, who, both in aspect and. disposition, is surely the most unromantie of individuals.

People to-day are wont to define sentiment improperly as a cloying, enervating emotion, and to confuse it with the exaggerated sentimentalism of a bygone and more gushing geneiation. Present-day man dreads making himself ridiculous, and would, as a choice of evils, rather be called heartless than emotional. He has observed the ways of the successful man, and finds that sentiment, os a rule, has handicapped him lather than helped him. Good nature, he lias decided, is incompatible with success ; and a susceptibility to tales of woe or feminine wiles is one of the most dangerous characteristics the ambitious man can possess. He therefore takes p.iins to avoid stimulating the latent sentiment indigenous to the human race.

With sentiment at its present low ebb, the man of the future threatens to be as uninteresting, prosaic, and unemotional as his own top-hat. It has, indeed, been suggested that the present ugliness oi masculine attire may be held partly responsiule for its wearer's lack of sentiment, and that the softer emotions and lighter side of life will not attract the mere man again until he returns to a more rational and picturesque fashion of clothing himself.

Whatever may be the cause, the materialistic and ultra-practical spirit of the age is much to be deplored. Without sentiment existence would be duller and unhappier even than it is, and our fellowcreatures infinitely less tolerable. Sentiment is a wholesome and refining mixture of emotions which mitigates the selfishness of mankind, accounts for the noblest actions of men and women, and can turn the most ordinary people into heroes and heroines. "A man of sentiment is by no means & term of reproach, and need not imply anything mawkish or effeminate. The affection which every normal man. feels for his family, tor "the home and playground of his childhood, is sentiment pure and simple, and a feeling not to be ashamed of or crushed. Love, it is understood, makes the world go round, ancl sentiment is love in its highest form. An age. without sentiment would be an age without hope.