LADIES' GOSSIP.

Otago Witness, Issue 2805, 18 December 1907, Page 73

LADIES' GOSSIP.

— The wedding dress of lilac poplia worn by Queen Alexandra on the occasion of her marriage 44 years, ago, and in which die first won the 'hearts of her future subjects, is still carefully preserved by Her Majesty. This dress was chosen in compliment to Queen Victoria, who always bad. a love of lilac. — Possibly some readers may have seen from time to time in the Westminster Gazette, pretty, tliougKiful ir-erses signed "Eleanor Esher," although they may not have been aware ihat the signature bid the identity of Lady Esher. Her ladyship is a poetess of considerable repute, and, like her husband, has many close friends in th« literary world. Lady Esher, as a chUdi, was the .playmate of our princesses. She was the- youngest daughter of the late Sylvian Van da •Weyer, jane of the most noted foreign diplomatists of bis day, who enjoyed the intimate personal friendship of Queen Victoria. After bis retirement he settled in England close to Windsor, and thus his 'daughter was constantly associated with our late sovereign's, younger children. Lady Ester is an extremely handsome woman, with artistic and unconventional ideas as to dress. She usually adorns^ her liair with a Grecian fillet. — The old-fashioned idea of a Sunday sown, a house-gown, and a walking-dress is long since exploded. Nobody wears Sunday gowns, for Sunday is like any * other <$ay. Out-door gowns must b» of *H sorte, comprising motoring, gp]£ag,

travelling, shooting, and tennis dresses, while the house-gown may mean anything from the simple morning cashmere to the elaborately lace-trimmed bridge frock. The multiplicity and variety of occupations and amusements is the -rock on which the modern woman splits. If she pays a visit of even three days, she must take trunks large enough for a holiday of three weeks. To be weli dressed she must be appropriately dressed and to be appropriately dressed) 'means a mountain of dii- ,

ferent garments. — Lady Violet Greville. — "If!" Of all the preposterous "ifs" that ever were tittered, "there is none more preposterous than this, "If youth but knew." Youth never has known, and never will, and never can know its worth. All the preaching and all the teaching of those looking backward will never make youth realise the incomparable value of its all too few fleeting years. It is a treasure only rightly estimated when its. glory has departed. Youth wants all the j experience of life and love, success and > failure, riches or - fame, before youth learns that all these count as nothingwhen compared with the hope, the charm, and the beauty that are inseparable from youth. There is a tendency just now- to praise the fascinations of the woman of 30, or even 40, and underrate the- charm youth." The reasons given to account for that it is "when she has passed the ! fourth decade that a woman is now the i most dangerous to the susceptibilities of I the other sex." (This delicate compliment ' is, doubtlessly, "eagerly appropriated by every woman who dare .not lay claim to J youth.' The reasons given to account for j

— What with caravanning, camping out, renouncing meat and wine, and buying ready-mad© frocks, a good many of us are trying our best to lead the simple life. It is doubtless better for the next generation that the young girk of this oau scarcely be induced to touch the oup that inebriates as well as cheers. Even young men, says the Gentlewoman, Neville Lytton among them, are vaunting the virtues of fruit, nuts,' and vegetables .as food. And barley water, actually barley water, is becoming popular as a drink. Mrs Earle, of "Surrey Garden" fame and aunt of the present Lord Lytton, is an ardent disciple of vegetarianism ; so too, although less dogmatic a one, the Duchess of Rutland — aye ! and Lady Plymouth and the young Lady Lytton and the Baronne de Meyer besides. Anyhow, it is quite a. sign of the times that the Duchess of Portland gave a luncheon party some time ago at the Eustace Miles Restaurant, and her guests included Arthur Balfour and Lord Revelstoko and the Duchess of Marlborough, this fascination are that, though her face may Ikvto lines tliafc "sweet and twenty " regard with dismay, her figure may be fuller than -"sweet seventeen" deems graceful, it may be even that Art has to step in where Nature fails in the matter of hair and complexion, but it is her manner that charms. In carriage, in irtereste, in thought, it is said, the woman of 40 is as young as her daughter at leas than half her years, but her mind is better balanced and her judgments are clearer. - What comment is to be made on this-? I fear that it is written by a woman of 40, with a talent for making the worse seem the better cause. There is nothing in the world more wonderful and charming than youth, and beautiful and graceful youth can and will always bold its own against the most captivating and fascinating specimen of middle-age. Whatever she says, and however strongly may be asserted to the contrary, I hold with the woman who says that there is no middle-aged woman in tiie world, be she ever so beautiful, who would not buy her youth back at any cost — if she. oguld. The beaujj of youth

!is but fleeting, and, as I have said, its value is ever and always slighted by its possessors. — " Yetta," in the Liverpool Mercury.