Ladies' Column.

Timaru Herald, Volume XIIIC, Issue 14211, 28 May 1910, Page 3 (Supplement)

Ladies' Column.

(By '"Moira.")

The Committee and officers of the Arts and Crafts Society have been working very hard, and the display that will be seen on Wednesday next will do justice to their work. Different artists in New Zealand have already sent their pictures, aud each day the loan pictures are arriving. The curio room will possess curios of the most interesting type. The Committee in charge of this room have collected the best Sanmaii, Fiji. Mexican. Indian, American and New Zealand curies in South Canterbury. Most of the China- collected will be valuable old china, such as Dresden, Wedgewood, etc., and some beautiful glass will be shown. Some iine jewellery and old lace will be exhibited, and it will be arranged with the art needlework. Quite a large number of entries have teen received for the Music. Photography and Cooking, and this will also form another attraction.

.-■lill '-.oiug and has i"> tini' 1 ti) stop — and not having '>i'i u allowed id jump in their uurscrv days, tlie ehaiu-es arc.

ten in one they jump the wrmiji way. Mid the chances are very much in favour of their breaking a limb ii not of measuving their length under a passing cart.

they wear pneumonia blouses —fashion experts it of them—aud they eateh a coid and again a cold, each time a little worse till they rest beneath the coiu. coki sod.

Put the men into long trailing skirts, and see wha tuse all this athletic training would be. None at all, and worse than none. We can never be ourselves, we have given up expecting so great a boon. Woman has one mission in life, and only one —and that mission is to look charming always, for ever.

Even our ago is a. handicap. In many ways the older a. man grows the more his worth increases, up to a point in business, and certainly in the marriage market: but tip to a. few years

uio, if not now, any woman over twenty-live was looked upon as '''settiny: on.'' and beinic only lit for that place we all instinctively dread—the HELPMATE OK HINDRANCE, I slu "li'-„ .. x .. -. 0 | Well, isn't it uniairr

It lias bc-eu suggested that wives maybe roughly divided into two classes—those who help, and those who hinder. Lucky the man who draws a helpmate in the matrimonial lottery! Lookers on. however, can see very plainty when a wile helps, and when she hinders. The selfish woman who puts herself iirst in everything, even to zhe saerifiee of her husband's happiness, is a type we have all met. A Tain, extravagant wife is almost worse than the merely selfish. In her love ot' dress, and her anxiety to vie with women tar richer than herself, she wiFT, make her husband live beyond lis income-. She will run into debt. and not he too scrupulous as to how the obtains the money to satisfy her creditors. A wife such as this is a millstone round the neck of the unfortunate man who has married her, and sooner or later she will probably make ■hipwveok of their home. Hut as. a seiti-'h. extravagant or shiftless wife ean spoil her husband's chances, in the same way a bravo, loyal woman can In- of the utmost service to him. How often does' a. dull, uniii-

teresttng man owe ail his success in life to the brains of a clever and ambitious partner! Her tact and quick feminine intuition carry liim over many a shoal, her talent for entertaining bricks infinen.-ial friends about the house. He would never dream of taking any decisive step in his business without first talking the matter over "with her at home. She spurs him on ■when he is tired and despondent; she manages her household so carefully and well xhat the most- is made of every shilling. In case of illness she will nurse him back to health and strength; the doctor knows the value of a devoted wife in a fight against disease. Should his work call him overseas, the true helpmate will make a comfortable home for her husband even under the most difficult conditions. She will be his right hand in everything, and will keep up a brave heart under the many trials of a life in the wilds.

When a man falls in love, he endows the object of his affection with every virtue under the sun, and imagines she will be the ideal companion for him. It is almost- a pity his eyes should be blinded at such a critical moment, for the choice of a wife may make or' break his whole career. Considering the vital questions at stake, e.nd the light-heaited iirrosponsibihty with which so many men rush into matrimony, is it a. tribute to womanhood that the helpmate should be found so much ofiener than the hindrance.

THE BESTFITL- WOMAN. Everyone knows what a pleasure itis to meet the perfectly serene, woman, who carries with her wherever she goes a restful atmosphere for her friends.' It may be interesting to try to discover how this charnx beyond charms is cultivated.

Such a woman has a fine sense of the true proportion of things. Hence she does not exhaust herself or her vocabulary on trifles. The temporarv loss of her thimble does not deprive her, instantantaneously and completely, of her serenity of mind.

Should she miss her train or be kept waiting for fire minutes, she emerges from the petty annoyance apparently none the worse in health, or temper, simply because she is wise enough to recognise that it is a petty annoyance and nothing more. She is ■■mistress of herself though China fall." Xot that she is lacking in intensity of feeling, but her common sense leads her to withhold the expression of such feeling until the suitable occasion arrives. There is no need to kindle a mighty furnace to boil a cup of water: a gas jet will suffice.

Moreover, she never wastes her time and strength in useless regrets. Howfever disastrous and unfortunate the occurence may be, since it cannot be undone she expels it- from her thoughts altogether. Some people expe'l a vast amount of breath in deploring pastevents, which" no amount of talking can undo. It means a sad loss of vital force. The sensible woman reserves her ■vital force for present, or future exigencies.

Again, she does not expect impossibilities of herself or anyone else. She is content to look "one step onward and secure that step." She knows perfection is not, to say the least. as common as blackberries in this world; in fact, as a certain witty titled gentleman, now deceased, used to eay, the only perfect thing he knew .was a perfect fool! But perhaps it is, as regards the use of her tongue that this woman shows her sense most conspicuouslv. She will not always say all she knows, but she always knows all she says. Pascal was of the opinion that if everyone knew what one said of another there would not be four friends iii the world. HAXDICAPPED WOMAN. It always seems to me so frightfully ■unfair the way we poor, wretched women are handicapped at- every turn in this world of ours. We are not given a chance-—and it isu t a bit sporting of the powers thatbe. It starts —this horrible handicapping I —in the cradle, and we continue Ijeing handicapped till we reach the quiet shelter of the grave—let us hope sincerely it really does end there—you never know! When our little hearts are breaking with a poignancy- and anguish we seldom experience in after life end we are howling out our little souls —how often we have been told wo really must not cry like that, and why forsooth; —because we really do not look pretty! As if we cared how we looked on these occasions—but one had to care —that is just where the handicapping comes in.

We must never be natural or unaffected. Even the nursery w« might never sit as we liked or flop about, or play games like the boys we yearned to emulate and even beat —little girls n'.usn't b-.- rough or awkward. Even in iho matter of '.clothes — taore women thai: perhaps you imagine have met their death through the clothes they wear, and their clothes ere one of the greatest handier,}- : a long skirt badiy managed at a critical moment is iiilinitely more dangerous to women than the maddest of steeplechasing to men —it trips them rip as tttej jamp from an omnibus that is

There are only about live years of our life that are worth living at all at, this rate. The nursery days. in which we might have been so hoppy it allowed to run wild as our brothers did, were given up solely to the one idea, that literally obessed our mother's and our nurse's minds, learning how to look pretty, even if we are not so blessed by nature, and there seemed to be no earthly possibility of such a stat<- of tilings—all the more necessity to strive after such a vanishing goal. Tn our teens we were taught accomplishments to make us charming, and we were thrust into tight corsets to make our figures good, and sooil our ease, and make us vilelv uncomfortable, all for the same object. What Mature had overlooked in the way of handicapping us our parents and guardians hastened to supply. And ail for the sake of enslaving (for a time) the affections of some vague male creature in tho~e short five years who would most- possibly ra-< us by and marry sr.me bread and better miss in a pigtail who scorning Nature and her handicaps had lived a merry natural life, and even liow'ed as she pleased. \Te st!end the rest of our lives repairing the ravages of time, and do it so awfullv badly that even the effort imorinted on our childish minds "to look pretty" at any cost. becomes merelv a handicap, and a verv expensive one. a. vicmr.