A FEMININE MANIA.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 6138, 26 March 1898, Page 3

A FEMININE MANIA.

(P.UMaU Gazette.)

• My cousin Lavinia has a mania for moving the furniture. I tell her it is the only feminine thing about her. For I regard ifc as an eminonfcly feminine trait. A man is content to have his furniture remain in the same position from one year's end to the other ; indeed, •he detests having it moved. The normal woman, on the other hand, likes her furniture to play " general post " on an average once a month.

A man's smoking-room will remain the I same shape and colour for years together, not so much as a chair changing its position.- He will put off having his armchair covered till ifc is in absolute holes ; and then, as often as not, he will have it recovered in precisely the same stuff as it wore before. When he becomes convinced that his room is no longer fit for human habitation, ho will have ifc "done up," but in a thorough, -wholesale sort of way. He will turn in paperers, upholsterers, and carpenters, and have the whole room thoroughly renovated and refurnished, so that it looks like a brand-new room, and then leave ifc alone probably for another ,decade. But the constant, almost daily, little shifting and twisting about of furniture, changing of chair covers and * curtains that goes on in a woman's sittingroom is his detestation.

I have always thought that mau's detestation of having his furniture moved is afc the bottom of his dislike of having his room "cleaned." Most men infinitely prefer that their rooms should remain dirty than run the risk of having their furniture moved by allowing them to be cleaned. A man will exist, with equanimity, even happiness, in a room so clogged up with dust that it is little better than a dustheap, and be perfectly miserable if anyone so much as hint that it wants cleaning. I have known a man plunged in gloom for a whole day, and restless, nervous, and irritable into the bargain, because he somehow got wind of the fact that his room was to be cleaned out on the morrow, while he was away from homo. And the whole cause of his misery was that he feared the tables and chairs might not be put back in precisely the same position as they were before.

Most women recognise this peculiarity on the part of the superior sox, and are aware that it, so to speak, is a mere nervous disease. They accordingly treat it as such, and do not worry the patient by telling him his room is to be cleaned, but take the opportunity when he is well out of the way to have it cleaned, and say nothing about it. When this is done with care and circumspection, the man will return and resume occupation of his room, sublimely unconscious thafc anything has occurred during his absence; fondly imagining, indeed, thafc his room is as full of dust as before he went away. Women do not, however, always show this tact. I have known a poor man worried into a nervous fever by haying dusters and brooms, so to speak, shaken in his face for a whole week before they began to operate. Sometimes a woman will offend from youth and ignorance. A friend tells me that the early years of her married life were poisoned by the fact that she had her husband's room cleaned while he was out for the day, and did not tako the precaution to conceal the fact from him. In fact she pointed out with pride the various changes she had made in the position of the furniture, books, and nicknacks. She says that ifc gave him a distrust of her which it took year3to get Now, a woman delights in having her room cleaned. Tho knowledge that each article of furniture haa been moved and the dustheaps hiding behind them pounced upon and evicted is, to her, most satisfactory. But what pleases her most is the grand opportunity such a cleaning affords for entirely changing the appearance ot her room, for making all the furnituro change places, for putting on new chair covers, putting up new curtains — in short, for giving the room an entirely new shape nnd colour. For jusfc as a man is distressed by the change in his room, so is a woman irritated by its monotony and sameness.

With some women the desire to_ change the look of their room by moving tho furniture will occur perhaps nofc of tener than once in six months. Others will fee attacked with it once a week, or even once a day. My cousin Lavinia belongs to the latter class. Indeed, changing the furniture amounts wifch her to a mania. Nofc a I*% passes that she does' not make some change in her room. It may ba the mere Moving of the chairs, or tha changing of h-ar nick-nacks and flower vases from one f wie to another. But it is frequently a 80 complete that you do not tecogniao the room. I often wonder what I *ouia happen if Laviuia's sitting-room j -called upon to figure in a trial, in

which a description of its arrangement was required. No two witnesses would describe it alike. Eveu in colour it varies like a chameleon. Ihave visited lier one day and found her in " rose-coloured boudoir. A week later I found , her wreathed and spotted witli green, and a few days later glowing with TurkeyI am woman enongh to know what ifc is to bo seized quite suddenly, with an uncontrollable impulse to move a certain article of furniture from one place to another at once. But I am thankful to say it is not of frequent occurrence with me. I loolc upon it, in my own caso, as a most inconvenient mania. In tho first place, because it occurs in inconvenient times and frequently when one happens to be particularly tired. And in tho second place, because one's perverse fancy usually fixes upon the largest thing in the room.

It is curious how the impulse nags at one. "It won't take »mm uto," ifc keeps saying. " I.o nly just want to see what the room will look like," and so on. Unless you have nn iron will afc command to resist the impulse, it yvill have you up before you are five minutes older, and you wili find yoursolf laboriously lugging the cumbrous things about the room. Often the impulse comes upon one insidiously. It begins with an inclination to " potter about " — to move

the small things in the room, to put the books thafc are beginning to crowd up one's table back into the bookshelves, to sorb the newspapers and magazines, to rearrango tiie flowers. After such a " tidying-np," ono naturally pauses to contemplate with approval the improved appearance of the room, audit is then thattho desire to movo the furniture comes upon one. How much prettier the room would look, ono thinks, if the sofa and tho cabinet changed places, if the roimd tablo were in that corner, and tho piano in this ! I confess that I have not tho least desire to movo other people's furniture. Possibly because I never stay long enough in other people's houses for it to get on my nerves. But my cousin Lavinia cannot be ten minutes in' anyone else's house without beginning to want to move tho furniture. When, having just arrived to stay with me, I see her, teacup in - hand, eyeing the ro<-mi critically while sho tolls mo about her journey,. I know quite well thafc she is longing to bo up and doing. As often as not I happen to have moved everything the clay before. And if this is the case, I take no notico and let Lavinia suffer ; which I atn bound to say she does in silence, for she is too well -bred to suggest that tho arrangement of my room is not to her taste. But if it is some timo since the chairs and tables played " general post," I gratify Lavinia by saying carelessly. "Lavinia, can you suggest anything that would improve the appearance of this room ?" " Well, my deav," says Lavinia. " let us see. How would it be to move thafc round table nearer the window and put tho sofa in the opposite corner ? Then you could put that large armchair on this side and tho little on-3 over here." And the next day Lavinia and 1 fall to and havo a thoroughly enjoyable morning. Tho curious thing is that Lavinia always seems to feel her responsibility m tho matter to be greater than our exchange of remark's on the subject would suggest. Indeed, sho gives herself away by frequently referring to the change, and asking mo anxiously if I do nofc think the room greatly improved by the change.