MEN AND WOMEN.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XIX, Issue XIX, 30 October 1897, Page 585

MEN AND WOMEN.

The great German General Von Moltke married Miss Burt, a plain, not very cultivated girl, and lived most happily with her until her death, which took place on Christmas Eve, 1868. Very touching was his devotion to her memory. Upon his estate at Kreisau he built a mausoleum, situated on the eminence embowered in foliage. In front of the altar of this little chapel was placed the simple oak coffin, always covered with leaves, in which the remains of his wife reposed. Sculptured in the apse was a finely carved figure of our Lord in an attitude of blessing. Above were inscribed the words ‘ Love is the fulfilment of the law.’

When a boy, 11 years old, retired a few nights since his eyes were as usual. In the morning the pupils were dilated, fixed, not influenced by light. He could not distinguish light from darkness. No cause for the condition could be found until the teeth were examined, when it was seen that they were crowded and wedged together. Two permanent and four temporary teeth were extracted. The same night he could distinguish light from darkness, the next day objects, and in a few days his eyes were in a normal condition. He had no other treatment.

The poet Heine married a woman who could hardly read and write, ano who was quite incapable of understanding what he wrote. Goethe, the greatest of Germans, married his housekeeper.

An experimental race was recently made in a French office l>etween a skilful typist and an expert Frenchman, the test being the number of times a phrase of eight words could be reproduced in five minutes. The typist scored thirty-seven and the penman twenty-three.

A curious custom prevails in Bulgaria. All newly married women are obliged to remain dumb for a month after marriage, except when addressed by their husbands. When it is desirable to remove this restriction permanently the husband presents her with a gift and then she can chatter to her heart’s content.

London contains about one-eighth of Great Britain’s population, has a larger daily delivery of letters than all Scotland, a birth every minute and a death every six.

There is a hope which is one of the most subtle and deceitful which ever existed, and one which wrecks the happiness of many a young girl’s life. This is the common delusion that a woman can best reform a man by marrying him. It is a mystery how people can be so blinded to the hundreds of eases in every community where tottering homes have fallen and innocent lives have been wrecked, because some young girl has persisted in marrying a scoundrel in the hope of saving him. Such unions can result in nothing but sadness and disaster. Let no young girl think that she may be able to accomplish what a loving mother or sympathetic sisters have been unable to do.

Why is it that a young widow is usually fascinating ’ Her charm is one which experience alone can give. She understands men. She knows the strength and weakness of men as no unmarried woman can know them, and knowledge is |x>wer. She has learnt a man’s tastes, and she suits herself to them. She knows a man loves to lie made comfortable, and she attends to his personal welfare. She knows he delights in being amused, and she makes herself amusing and entertaining. She has found out that an interest in himself is the thing man most appreciates in woman, ami she shows him frankly how deep that interest is. She has perhaps learnt to take an interest in all mankind from her experiences with one ; that is a simple solution of the matter.

Among the Boman women at one period there was a morbid ambition to grow lieards, and they used to shave their faces and smear them with unguents to produce these inappropriate appendages. Cicero

tells us that at one time to such an extent did the mania for beards grow upon women that it was found desirable to pass a law against the ‘adornment.’ A writer in a leading magazine has made the prophecy that in 300 years from now the world will know only three languages—English, Russian and Chinese. The English language will l>e sjioken all over North and South America, in Australia, India, Africa, New Zealand and the islands of Australia and the Pacific. The Russian tongue will have conquered all Europe except Great Britain and all Asia except India. Chinese will hold sway over the rest of the world.

Etiquette has been defined as ‘ the oil that makes the wheels of society run smoothly,’ and no one will deny that a reasonably fixed code of social ol>servance is useful and even necessary. But how deliciously funny some of our customs are. One of the most absurd of these, the ‘ high ’ handshake, is to l>e chronicled thankfully as rapidly becoming olraolete. It has for several years been the absurdest burlesque of friendly greeting. In Russia a child of ten years of age cannot go away from home to school without a passport. Nor can common servants and peasants go away from where they live without one. A gentleman residing in Moscow or St. Petersburg cannot receive the visit of a friend who remains many hours without notifying the police. The porters of all houses are compelled to make returns of the arrival and departure of strangers, and for every one of the above passengers a charge is made of some kind.

Mr David Christie Murray, writing of America and the Americans, says:—‘Nowhere on the surface of this planet, so far as I know, is popular credulity in such contrast with learning and capacity. The newspaper advertisements show you a hundred of the oddest ways of getting a living out of the folly and stupidity of mankind and womankind. The very name of American is with us a synonym for shrewdness and mental agility, anti yet a casual glance at the advertising pages of the public prints shows you an abyss of ignorance, credulity, and superstition in which countless creatures of prey are at work on the body of a foolish humanity. Contrast heaps itself on contrast; strangeness crowds on strangeness. I have just laid down on the table before me a verylieautifully printed and illustrated magazine, one of the cheap publicationswhich somehow we have not been able so far to rival on our our side. I find in it a full-page advertisement of a nostrum which is guaranteed to ‘ make the plainest woman positively beautiful : the sickest woman positively healthy.’ Somebody pays for that, and it is certainly not the advertiser who does so in the last instance. Further on I read in the same pages :—‘ A beautiful woman must not only possess a clear and brilliant complexion, but must have also a properly developed bust. No matter how severe your case, write me, and I will make you a proud and happy woman.’ I wonder how many proud and happy women owe their pride and happiness to this benefactress of their kind. ‘Any lady made to look fifteen years younger without charge ’ is an announcement in another publication now under my eye. An ‘ eye powder,’ whatever that may be, is offered to all ladies ‘ who wish to lie beautiful.’

The wives of great 'men have much to bear. The wife of the late Professor Agassiz was one morning putting on her stockings and boots. A little scream attracted the Professor’s attention. Not having risen, he leaned forward anxiously on his ellsiw and inquired what was the matter. ‘Why, a little snake has just crawled out of my ls»ot !’ cried she. ‘Only one, my dear’’ interrupted the Professor, calmly lying down again. ‘ There should have lieen three.’ He had put them there to keep them warm. The most curiously decorated graves in the world arc the negro graves in Zululand. Some of these mounds arc garnished with the bottles of medicine used by the departed in their final illness, and the duration of the malady is guessed by the number of Ixittles.