OUR GIRLS.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XXIII, Issue IX, 26 August 1899, Page 42

OUR GIRLS.

with more money than brains. In exchange for his happy privileges he secures a life partner who can tell him a little—sometimes a very little —about Darwin, Huxley, and" other scientists; can talk him to sleep with her views concerning the drama, poetry, music, art, etc. If there is anything she doesn't know, or thinks she doesn't, she utters a silent vow to Heaven to find out all about it. This has lately l>een demonstrated by her rage for ceramics, aestheticism, and kindred subjects. Such things were among the lost arts, but have been resurrected and brought to the notice of the feminine portion of society, ami behold the result. Not a fashionable house can you enter where you will not find evidences of the indust rv and learning of the ladies, scattered about in the shape of plaques, un-heard-of combinations of colours, and the like. If she cannot play Beethoven. Mozart, and Chopin ravishingly, she can. however, make a grand attempt at something like music. She not only can play herself, but her “sisters, and her cousins, and her aunts” can do likewise. Yet WE LOVE THIS GIRL. with her pink and white face, her display of millinery, her genius in dress, and all her other faults and follies. For underneath all this mask there is a noble, lovable character, but it usually requires life's stern lessons for the unfolding of the nobler woman. What more need be said? That our modern girl should be taught to live for others as well as for herself; that life is something more than mere amusement. That there is such a thing as genuine love outside of novel covers, and that bread and cheese and kisses have a sweetness and flavour that money alone cannot buv. She eau teach the girl of forty years ago much knowledge of the world: and who of us do not knowgirls who fancy that "MOTHER IS VERY MUCH BEHIND THE TIMES." is old-fashioned, and does not know half as much as her fair daughter? But. ah! mother, the girl of fortv xears ago with all her antiquated notions, and narrowness, and lack of intellectual training, ean teach the girl of to-day many a precious lesson. She can teaeh her to live within her means, and to make home a place of beauty and happiness and content.