THE WAY TO REST.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 5092, 27 October 1894, Page 3

THE WAY TO REST.

5 (American Paper.) ; There is one bit; of furniture no bedroom should want for, to wit, the tabouret— the little foot-stool, indispensable in its way, , will not fill the place of this more sufficient "rest" for "bate out underpinnings," to | use the " washer-lady's " euphemism. [ Amply supporting weary lege, the tabou- . ret, together with an easy chair, furnishes ' a delightful substitute for the couch, when \ resting and reading are to be combined. Physicians all agree that a woman should, as much as practicable, keep her legs on a level with the rest of the body, t and occasional indulgence in that mannish l trick of placing them even higher, would help amazingly towards doing away with [ tboae tired feelings, and that dragged sen- . Bation. [ Fashionable women, to whom the neceei sity of never showing fatigue and of ever ' looking their "best" has taught the . knack of acquiring a maximum of rest in ! a minimum of time, are fast falling into | masculine habits of posture when in the ( seclusion of bedroom or boudoir. This era of exercise giveß them their cve — ! they learn on the tennis court or in the | "swagger "'gymnastic class how entirely restorative it is to lounge and 101 l about; ', On the other hand, in the less leisured class, there is a regrettable proportion of ', women, who, soundly intelligent in the . main, cling to old-fashioned and mistaken notions of decorum. These estimable ' women could not, by any inducement, be [ made to give their aching limbs a little , healthful liberty and relaxation. They do not realize, or in their old fogeyism they choose to ignore, the fact that the muscular and, in turn, nervous, system 1 thrives quite as surely on a variety of attitudes and motions as does the stomach [ on a catholic diet or one's spirits on the ' spice of life. . Those wtt&en who preserve the " bolt--1 upright" on all occasions when not aotu- \ ally in bed, need not hope to retain into ; middle-life youth's most alluring charm— ' plasticity. Muscles, kept ever on the , stretch, must lose their elasticity ere very [ long. There is, it is true, a sort of automatic springiness that some ever active 1 women carry with them into extreme — ' and extremely graceless— old age. These metallic starts and jerks hold about the same relation to the easy buoyancy of youth that the dance of the grasshopper bears to the soft litheness of . a pretty Angora. To go back to the innocent cause of this ' plea for more limb room, I want to say to ' the tabouret that it may become a most ' pioturesque and important part of the mist 1 en seine of those hours of studied deshabille, when a pretty woman, prettier than ever ! in flowing tea-gown, receives, half reclining, her intimates only. --- ' In a winter room, furnished in mahogany ', and tapestry-like portieres, the tabouret is ' effectively upholstered in old-fashioned 1 worsted-filled canvas, which oeems, if not 1 in reality, to owe its gay pattern to the patient fingers of some paszed-away Idns--1 woman. Something cool in texture should cushion the tabourat for summer. India ' silk, linen or denim, or, best of all, a 1 equare of lovely matting. The Japanese matting — a combination of cotton and ! swamp grass, deliriously dyed — is finely ' woven and reversible, and therefore ex* [ tremely durable.