ARE YOU AN ENTHUSIAST?

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 73, Issue 424, 15 November 1930, Page 16 (Supplement)

ARE YOU AN ENTHUSIAST?

MODERN GIRLS WHO ARE BORED (By an English Writer) Just lately I overheard a man remark to another (apparently of a mutual friend), “It s a pleasure to take that girl uut —she's so easy to entertain. ’ ’ And the other answered. “Yes, it’s fun to watch her get excited over little things that no one else would notice.” This conversation set me thinking —1 wanted to know the subject of it. What a tribute in these days of bored, extravagant, cynical youtn, which has been everywhere, seen everything, done everything, and for whom, consequently, life holds no furtherc discoveries or surprises. With a refreshing anchronism she must be. Is she ever scornfully called “prewar,” 1 wonder, because she gets so much happiness out of these “little things” of life? Sunsets or Cocktails Buch things as sunsets, new strawberry jam, *ne first cuckoo, the scent of summer in a leafy lane, the murmur of waves on a seashore, a lark's song, a golden harvest moon. All these arc within reach of most people, and yet many do not even notice, much less get excited about them. They rarely see a sunset, being at that hour generally inside the beach or country club drinking cocktails. Strawberry jam is “ old-fashioned and messy” so they call for “rumbabas” in a farmhouse kitchen.

The music of the lark, the cuckoo, and the sea is drowned in the roar of their high powered cars and the raucous shriek of their hooters.

The scents of summer cannot compete with the petrol fumes they leave in their wake.

People to-day are not much given to enthusiasm anyway, except as regards speed or noise and mechanical devices in connection with both.

They will certainly go mad in mobs over a test match or cup final.

They will lionise a film star, storm the gates at Wimbledon, tear the clothes off each other’s backs to sec people dive in the Serpentine, yen themselves hoarse with community singing; but as individuals so many seem to have lost the power to be thrilled by anything less than some major occurrence.

Small things don’t impress them at all. It is often impossible to discuss even a new play, because one’s frienus cannot remember if they’ve seen it or not—‘ ‘Wc see so many, dear, you know. ” Pleasure is too cheap to-day—too easily come by for many enthusiasts to survive. Soon Bored For a few pounds a trip is arranged fur us to any country in Europe —hotels, tips, luggage, all provided for — no adventurees, no mishaps, no thrills —everything run according to schedule. In our parents’ youth even a picnic was quite a wild dissipation— to be anticipated for a week, and talked of for at least two subsequently. To-day we all pile into a car, at an hour’s notice, complete with lunch basket. cocktail shaker, gramophone, a portable wireless set, a couple of ukuleles, and, arrived at our destination, proceed to make a desert of nature as successfully as can be managed with the means at our disposal. Very soon that becomes boring, so when all the food is eaten we rush somewhere else to dance or play tennis—doing so many miles at something incredible per hour —tearing madly past all the summer beauty of woods, lanes and hedges in a cloud of dust. Rare Type No wonder that simple little things lose the power to stir scuses so deadened. No wonder girls are difficult to entertain, and require more money spent on them in an evening than their mothers got for a month's housekeeping or a quarter’s dress allowance. I expect that the girl who unconsciously inspired this article is prewar enough to prefer a poached egg off a marble-topped table with a man she likes, to dinner at the Embassy with one who bores her, or a bus ride to Kcw in the right company, rather than the interior of a Rolls with the wrong kind. But 1 am sure that luts of men find it novel, and pleasant, and rather stimulating to sec her eyes light up with interest, and to hear her voice slightly breathless with excitement, and her words come rapidly tumbling over one another in appreciation of “little things.” For she is that rare type—a born enthusiast. I wish there were many more like her —but I am afraid they are fast becoming extinct.