THE FASCINATING WOMAN

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIII, Issue 227, 7 January 1911, Page 9

THE FASCINATING WOMAN

It appears to be the fact nowadays that it is not so much the beautiful woman as the fascinating one who is looked for and admired. One hears the words "she is fascinating" constantly and everywhere recurring, and it seems to be the greatest compliment that can be paid to a womaa. is it because humanity is realising that beauty is but skin deep and lasts,for a short time? There are hundreds of beautiful women who are not in the least fascinating; and, on the other hand, one comes across women every day who are truly fascinating, in spite of their lack of physical beauty. Fascination does not necessarily mean perfect features, a spotless complexion, large liquid eyes with large, long, black eyelashes "sweeping the cheeks," nor even an ideal figure. It is somewhat difficult to give a clear definition of that wonderful word and that wonderful power, because there are many kinds of fascination. There is that dangerous magnetism, now made famous in Mr. Kip ; ling's poem, which, happily few. women possess—a weird power of fascination, the possessors of which our forefathers called sirens, merjnaids or vampires, similar to that with which certain snakes, for instance, paralyse their prey—by a look—before destroying it. There arc other varieties of fascination quite legitimate and worthy of cultivation. True elegance, based on genuine artistic taste, is a mild yet useful form of fascination. Another effective form is—though it may sound strange at first—health. Health means vitality and joy, and vitality and joy are always attractive, and, above all, contagious. There are beings who, as it were, radiate vitality. Their presence in a drawing-room crowded with dull or tired people will almost miraculously stir every one, shake the general torpor, the. sluggishness of all, and, after a few moments, that drawingroom, permeated with a heavy numbness, will assume a different appearance; conversations will come lively, repartees will flash merrily and with sparkle. This will take place even if the newcomer is not a genius herself in the matter of conversation. People who are thoroughly healthy and active, who do not hesitate to talk and move and laugh, who not only think and feel, but reveal their thoughts and feelings—in other words who live instead of merely existing—invariably possess a power of fascination. Another form of this power, and one with tremendous capacities, is sympathy. The woman who takes interest in other people's lives ,in their ambitions and doings, in their hobbies and ideals, is bound to be attractive. The man who will not be fascinated by a woman who takes the trouble to study him, tactfully, of course, but still minutely, has yet to be found. Such a study, if proceeded with in an easy, unaffected, and not too criticising manner,, is probably the highest form of compliment a human being can pay to another, and men are, to say the least, quite as sensitive in this respect as women. On the other hand, it may be added that a certain amount of coyness is indispensible to fascinate. The woman who "wears her heart upon her sleeve," and is incapable of keeping man guessing as to the exact state of her feelings, of concealing—for a time at least—her own emotions and sentiments, soon ceases to be fascinating. And, then, there is a subtle, irresistible power called "charm," without which fascination cannot, exist though it can be acquired gradually. Beauty cannot. We know the old saying: "The easiest way to be beautiful is to be born so!" •Shakespeare has written that "Beauty is but a vain and doubtful gift": but the fascination which issues from the qualities of a noble mind and a'sympathetic heart is more precious, more useful, more effective, and, above all, more lasting. CONTRASTS IX CONVERSATION. Conversationally, women may be divided roughly into two classes —the soporiflenlly silent and the artificially vivacious. Which is the more trying of the two it is difficult to decide. The woman who is always bubbling over with apparently inexhaustible supply of small talk, which she discharges breathlessly at her helpless victim, is not an ideal companion. She leaves one limp and exhausted, and slightly dazed. The sadly silent person has, strange to say, an almost similar effect. Many philosophers have paid a tribute to the charms of silence. But silences are of different degrees. The silence of two people who feel they ought to be talking, and who art vainly cudgelling their brains for subjects of conversation, is an entirely different thing from the silence of two people who are wholly sympathetic. A too great finiekyness is destructive of conversation in its true sense. If people must take precautions to avoid this subject or that subject, conversation is considerably crippled. If argument is tabooed because it is not ■•'good form," half the pleasure of conversation is gone. Argument is the very backbone of conversation, it is stimulating and illuminating. FEMINITIES OF OLD. " 'Woman,' wrote an obscure philosopher of the eighteenth century, 'has but one fault—that she fades. Therefore, instead of a Wife, take to yourself Books, and if you still crave after the Female Element, see to it that they be books about Women,' " quotes a writer on 'Torgotten Feminine Journals" in the Times. ° Philosophers are notoriously slow of blood, and this ingenious device may have satisfied an aphorist, vet one fancies him fluttering the leaves of the women's journals of his day with a smile of mingled complaisance and irony. There is at least this of charm about the publications of an earlier date, such as the "Ladies' Mercury" of l(i!)3—that no attempt to impart knowledge weights its pages. Correspondence, ehielly on matters matrimonial, swells the pages of the "Ladies' Mercury," and editorial advice is given. One lady, a bride , and, by her own version, beautiful, writes to complain of the miserly conduct, of her husband in expecting her to ride in a coach that contented his former wife. •• . . .1 find (says she) that the bin-best terms 1 can make is to have the old coach at my service, which if my pride would de-ceiid to accept, is an old rusty low-built Tool, and though it serv cd the little Dandipvat before me, 'twer absolutely impossible for a woman of my stature, with the superstructure, of a fashionable top-knot, to sit upright in it. T can obtain no further grant towards a new coach than that taxes run high, but if I'll have patience till the wars are done he'll see what he can do for me, and how little satisfaction this is you may imagine, for though f put myself to the trouble of going twice a day to extraordinary prayers for King William's success, that the wars may be at an end and the coach come, ret all this is poor comfort. Tn line. Tarn >o nettled with the miserable hunks' denial of so reasonable a request that T could in pure spite grant him a top-knot on his forehead twice as high as niv own." . She is met with the following Machiavellian advice: "Feign thyself ill, tire out his four Palfreys with galloping this way for the physician and the other for the apothecary. If this docs not da> threaten him with dving and make it your last request to be buried by such an aunt or such a aranum a hmidred ami fifty miles off. Ind if apothecaries' bills and the still more horrible approhension »f hot sup-

ping and mourning and to undo all a hundred and fifty miles stage for a hearse and other funeral cavalcades does not frighten him, then conclude him in a desperate condition, much sicker than thou, and hope to be very speedily a young rich widow able to buy thee a coach thyself."