DESCRIPTION OF A FLIRT.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume VIII, Issue 27, 4 July 1891, Page 127

DESCRIPTION OF A FLIRT.

FLIRTING is as universal as it is dangerous, and without doubt one of the most harmful and heartless practices in the world. Certainly there are ‘flirts’ and ‘ flirts,’ and some flirtations are more innocent than others. For instance, two j’oung people who are neither engaged may amuse themselves with a mild flirtation, and do neither each other nor anyone else any harm ; but if either of them has promised his or her affections elsewhere, and flirt merely for the sake of gratifying their vanity and receiving attention to which they have no right, then the flirtation is dangerous, and indeed sinful, especially when it inflicts needless pain on others. When a girl does all in her power to make herself look her best, appear agreeable, and try to fascinate any young fellow in whose society she may chance to be thrown, her friends (lady ones in particular) will deem her ‘a flirt’; but, after all, she has only done what was very natural under the circumstances, and only, perhaps, what they have often done themselves, for it’s very human nature to seek admiration from the other sex. This, in its way, may be very harmless and innocent, but the danger of flirtation is that women will often out of sheer vanity or rivalry, lead men on, just for the sake of having the ‘ honour’ (?) of an offer they are well aware they intend to refuse. A flirt can do her mischief very quickly. ‘ Still waters run deep,’ and she has a thousand and one little shafts that fly very silently, and wound very deeply. A look that accompanies the simple ottering of a flower, the unnecessary pressure of the hand when bidding farewell, an almost imperceptible gesture of affection, may each and all send a wave of tumult to the heart, and cause a momentary throb of rapture ; and yet the look, the touch, mean nothing—it is only ‘flirtation.’ Edna Lyall writes : ‘ No one has any right to raise feelings in another’s heart they know they have no intention of satisfying.’ The people who are most prone to flirt are generally the most heartless and selfish ; they flirt just to amuse themselves, and pour passer le temps, utterly regardless of the heartache they may be giving their victims. Having no sensitiveness themselves, they cannot realise the pain impressionable people suffer at their expense. What to them is only an amusement, is life or death to others. Sometimes a woman will turn a flirt from desperation; her heart has been wrecked by past bitter experiences, and having found the fickleness of one man, she believes in none, and knowing she can love none enough to trust them, flirts indiscriminately with each and all thatjeome in her way, ‘ For a broken heart cannot love or hope.’ Though it often knows how to flirt. Flirts are like butterflies, they flutter from flower to flower, hover over it one moment, give it a passing kiss, and then off, away to the next that takes its fancy, to soon forget its very existence. It is said that it ‘ takes two to make a quarrel,’ and certainly it takes two to make a flirtation. It would be useless (or a flirt would term it ‘no fun’) to make pretty speeches and give tender glances to one who appeared quite unconscious you were trying to fascinate them. A little quiet scorn or silent contempt would soon disarm the most determined or proficient flirt in the world ; for, after all, all flirtations are more or less shallow, as there cannot possibly be any depth of feeling. A man rarely flirts with the woman he wishes or intends to make his wife. His respect for her would be too great to allow her name to be bandied about by the ever-ready gossips and scandal mongers ; and though, somehow, a flirt can get many admirers, she does not always get a lover, for ‘admiration is not love,’and few could love and trust ‘a flirt.’

Eight Years in the H arem.—Between eight ami nine years ago a young girl, named Anna I’rokofyeff, then sixteen years of age, and of remarkable personal attractions, suddenly disappeared from her widowed mother's house in Odessa. The most searching inquiries were fruitlessly persecuted. It now transpires that after her abduction, Anna Prokofyeff was secietly carried to Constantinople, and eventually sold to a Salonica merchant, in whose harem she has remained until the recent death of her owner. From intelligence now received by friends it would appear that Anna was from the first treated with uniform kindness by the Salonica merchant, who, at his death, bequeathed to his favourite slave the whole of his property, consisting of four houses in Salonica. live trading schooners, ami £15,000. The fair legatee, now only in her twenty-fifth year, and still possessing her remarkable youthful beauty scarcely impaired, has placed her two boys under the educational training of the Russian monks of Mount Athos, and to their abbot she has presented one of her schooners. She is now also converting one of her Salonica houses into a Russo-Greek free school.