AFFECTATION.

Westport Times, Volume III, Issue 367, 3 October 1868, Page 3

AFFECTATION.

There is a certain kind of affectation very common among pretty women; and this is the affectation of not knowing that they are pretty, and not recognising the effect of their beauty on men. Take a woman with bewildering eyes say, of a maddening size and shape, and fringed with long lashes that distract you to look at; the creature knows that her eyes are bewildering, as well as she knows that fire burns and ice melts ; she knows the effect of that trick she has with them—the sudden uplifting of the heavy lid, and the swift, full gaze that she gives right into the man's eyes. She has practised it often in the glass, andkuows to a mathematical nicety the exact height to which the lid must be raised, and the exact fixity of the gaze.;. She knows the whole meaning of the look, and the stirring of men's blood that it creates ; but if you speak to her of the effect of her trick, she puts on an air of extremest innocence, and protests her entire ignorance as to anything her eyes may say or mean ; and if you press her hard she will look at you in the same way for your own benefit, and deny at the same moment of offence. Various other tricks has she with those bewildering eyes of h ers —each more perilous than the other to men's peace ; and all unsparingly employed, no matter what the result. For this is the woman who flirts to the extreme limits, then suddenly draws up and says she meant nothing. Step by step she has led you on, with looks and smiles, and pretty doubtful phrases always susceptible of two meanings, the one for the ear by mere word, the other for the heart by accompaniments of look and manner, which are intangible; step by step she has drawn you deeper and deeper into the maze where she has gone before your decoy; then, when she has you safe, she raises her eyes for the last time, complains that you have mistaken her cruelly, and that she has meant nothing more than any ene else might mean ; and what can she do to repair her mistake. Love you ? marry you ? No; she is engaged to your rival, who counts his thousands to your hundreds ; and what a pity that you had not seen this all along, and that you should have so misunderstood her! Besides, what is there about her that you or anyone should love ? Of all the many affectations of women, this affectation of their innocence of design when they practice their arts for the discomfiture of men, is the most dangerous and the most disasterous. But what can one say to them ? The very fact that they are dangerous, disarms a man's anger, and blinds his perception until too late. That men love though they suffer is the woman's triumph, guilt, and condonation ; and so long as the trick succeeds it will be practised, —" Saturday Review."

Under the heading " Stevens the Swindler" the Lyttleton Times thus compliments a departed gentleman ; " This character, who, about the beginning of August, victimised at least one local firm, has gone, it is believed, to America by last Panama mail. We are informed that he managed to get a forged acceptance on Cruickshank and Co., of Auckland, for £2OOO, which amount he contrived to get in cash,; .and that he ordered, but did not obtain, goods to the amount of £3OOO from the LanglandV Foundry Company in Melbourne. Stevens escaped from Hobart Town, on July 23, in the schooner Cleopatra, and was in Lyttleton on August 2. We have seen a Carte de visite of the accomplished Ghevaier a" inWustrie, and we must saythat it indicates a man of considerable personal attractions and intellect."