MY WIFE'S CULTURE.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 8100, 27 August 1904, Page 2

MY WIFE'S CULTURE.

(By MRS NEISH, in the "Westminster Budget,") "My dear Jack, it's all very -well for you to sneer," said my wife with much dignity, " but even women sometimes want to cultivate tlieir minds." " Heaven forbid that I should sneer, my dear Nell," I replied fervently, "only you are so pretty." "' Pah," said my wife. "And you have quite enough maind to please me." "Bufc I don't live only to please you," she responded; "besides, I'm not the only woman in the world, and other women went culture ; so I have promised, definitely promised, to start a Reading Society, to lie held here every Wednesday afternoon at five." "Good Lord!" I ejaculated. " Don't be vulgar," said my wife severely. "Who are the members to be?" "Miss Blount" — I made a grimace — "Mrs Rigley" — I made another I —" Maude Staunton, the two Moreton girls and Alice Anstruther, myself, and the three Wilsons — ten of us ; that's all at present." " What a collection ! All of 'eni as ugly a_ — " ! "My dear Jack," interrupted any wife, j " I have not chosen the best-looking of my { friends !" I "Wliy not?" I interposed; "I could j easily manage to get home early on Wed- j nesd-ays." She ignored this offer. " The pretty ones don't want culture." "Why not?" " Oh, they are too busy — playing about with your sex, or playing bridge and all that sort of thing ; bufc these women are all nice and clever — and interesting. Jack!" "H'ln!" I said eloquently. "What are you going to read — Browning?" "No," Nell shook her head, "I can't understand him — afc least, not mud. of him — and when I asked Miss Staunton to explain something the other day which she . had told me ehe thought perfectly beautiful and quite understood, she went upstairs to fetch a- ' key to Browning ' ; I don't want a man who needs a ' key ' ; besides, we shall of course read Shakespeare." " You'll find difficulties . even there," I _ug.g_sj.ed. Nell stared at me. " Difficulties ! Why?" "Well, it depends on the play." "How?" ehe insisted. "The nine cultured rpinsters may kick afc some of old Shakespeare's bacon— it's a little coarse in flavour sometimes, my dear Nell!" y " Jack— you're incurably vulgar," said my wife; "and you can be as late as ever you like on Wednesdays." " P.ighfc you are," I said' cheerfully. " 1 will (stay out- in the cold, cruel world with the foolish virgins, and leave you to entertain the wise." . My wife and I had more than one consultation over her Shakespearian Society. She aeked my advice as to whioh play they should read, and I suggested "The Merchant of Venice," but she shook her head : " Everyone will want to be Portia." "What about 'Measure for Measure.'" "Quite impossible," she said decidedly. "'Othello?'" " No, that's as bad." "'Romeo and Juliet,' then?" She once more shook her head despondently. "The nurse ie so horrihly indelicate!" I suggested various other plays. but Ne!" rejected them all. '•" No, I think, after all, we'll read ' The Merchant of Venice,' Jack: and I'll be Portia, and then there can't bs any quarrelling, b. cause they won't like to say anything to their hostess." Tbe Reading Society was a partial success. At firet, indeed, 'it was a complete sucoess, but after two or three Wednesdays had passed my wife began td grumble. "Miss Staunton wouldn't read the word 'damn' today," she said crossly. "No, 'damned,' I think it was. She was quite rude when I said I thought ifc was nonsense her substituting the word' 'hanged,' and she said she wasn't used to such language. I am sure she meant that as a bit at you, Jack !" "Kind of her," I murmured. "And the eldest Miss Moreton actually left oi?fc something about 'trod upon his corns,' because 6~_e eaid that corns were vulgar !" "Poor girl, perhaps she herself has—" I began, and catching my wife's eye stopped abruptly. "And to-day. Jack, Miss Moreton came on a word that made her quite angry with me." Why with you?" I asked, with genuine astonishment. " Ob ! because she had my copy, and she said I ought to have crossed ifc out. She refused to read it, and made it ten million times /rorse by stopping and saying, in a most awful voice, ' There is a word here that I must absolutely decline to read. It means someone not quite legitimate.-' " I roared with laughter, and Nell presently joined me. "I stood up," said my wife, 'and quoted 'Honi soit gui mai y pense,' but Miss Moreton said her head ached, aud she wouldn't read any more.' "Perhaps your French accent," I began gently, but Nell only laughed again if, the memory of Miss Moreton's scruples. " Jack," she said, " I believe they're all idiots, absolute idiots, and — but you'll Eec what I mean to do next time they come if they dare to be rude." Ifc was a week later, and coming iome eaily— having completely forgotten it was Wednesday- — I happened to pass the slightly open door of my wife's morning-room. Nell was apparently making a speech. Was she reading? No, surely not; she seemed angry rather than dramatic, and involuntarily I basely stopped to eavesdrop. ."You nrusb all have very evil minds," Nell was saying in the tone she uses when 1 have put my half-burnt cigarette by mistake on a white cushion. "Evil minds," she repeated, " not to be able to appreciate the delicate and ignore the coarse. It is too beautiful for you to meddle with— -you will be quarrelling with the Bible next. Can't you make allowances for the times, and rise above the little things and notice only what is great and Wonderful? This isn't a society for reading Dr Watt's •hymns," she added viciously, " and I am sick of it, you are all so very, very unkind" —my wife's voice was suspiciously near being tearful, " and so you must go and cultivate your minds elsewhere." She paused impressively and drew herself up. " I tlkerefore herewith dissolve for ever the Shakespearean Society. Good^bye z I___ shan't, stay here any longer," and with this final disregard of the laws of hospitality my wife ran out of tiie room and into toe. "Ttiey "wew awful. Jack!" she said to ■ - •

_ me when the last of the nine wise virgins had left the house. '* You can't think how rude and disagreeable they were because I spoke like that." " My dear Nell," I said, "I am quite sure you were justified and very basely treated." " No, not basely, stupidly,", she amend- j ed; "did you see them through the door?" she asked eagerly, "and did you think I made them look silly?" " They struck me," I said thoughtfully, " as being badly in need of something else besides Culture." "What?" " Beauty !" I replied ; " but lam happy to say they do Dot- of ten go together, Nell."