THE COMIC SIDE OF THINGS.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XXIV, Issue XXIV, 16 June 1900, Page 1147

THE COMIC SIDE OF THINGS.

A very large proportion of the trials and difficulties of life have a comic side to them, and if we can only cultivate the habit of seeing it, we shall find that we are provided with a most useful armour against the lesser evils which trouble us. Most of us can see the funny side after the annoyance or difficulty has passed; it is well that we can do so, but it would be better far if we could only realise it while it was still present. In great and crushing troubles all one can do is to bow In submission, 1 i:t after all these come very rarely in a life. It is the little pin-pricks of everyday existence which really sap the strength and sadden the heart, and against these an appreciation of the comic will generally prove an effective armour. To those who realise the funny side of things, the minor troubles are simply molehills to be passed on the journey of life, and they never appear to be mountains whose frowning heights shut out all the sunlight and every glimpse of the pleasant country beyond. It is often said that woman has no sense of humour. I am by no means prepared to grant that is true, but I must confess that she would be all the better for a larger amount of it. The fact is that woman’s training is at fault. Hitherto her sphere of action has been very limited, and her ideas and thoughts being necessarily limited. too. she has suffered from the warped sense of proportion which people must have who look on life from behind bars, instead of seeing it in its entirety among their fellows. The woman who has really lived, and who has faced some of the graver problems of life, does not worry herself nearly distracted over the delinquences of the cook, the impudence of the butcher’s boy, or inferiority of her smartest gown to even the simplest costume of her neighbour. Mrs Midas-Overtheway. She has learned

that all those things are really not worth vexing herself about, and bears them with smiling philosophy. She sees the comic side of the very things which formerly would have troubled her, and instead of magnifying them into troubles she beholds their true proportion, ami smiles afresh, not only at her present superiority, but at her past defects. ® ® ® WHAT TO IM) WHEN A GIRL SAYS “NO!” What course a man should pursue when his offer of marriage has been rejected enti.n'.’ depends upon circumstances. In the first place, if he is perfectly certain that she is the one and only woman in the world for him. he must weigh her rejection very carefully, and find out for himself whether or not her "No" may not mean “Yes.” Many a rejected lover has forgotten that a woman’s negative is only an affirmative under another name, and has hence vowed himself to perpetual celibacy, which he has disliked very much indeed. On the other hand, a man may entirely spoil any future chances he might have had by trying his fate again on the supposition that she did not mean what she said. If he had given her time, she might have realised what she was throwing so lightly away. Some men fail to grasp the sense of a rejection at all. and by sheer persistency they win in the long run. I don’t know if this class of man will be the happiest after marriage. It is not love that has induced the acceptance, but only the desire to be free from an annoyance that had become wearisome. It used to be the fashion for a man to blow his brains out when his proposal met with a rejection, but that went out with powder and patches. The modern lover, as a rule, walks away, and ends by marrying someone else.

Perhaps this may be the better plan, fur if his proposal has been made in the heat of the moment a calm reflection which comes wi h rejection shows bow ninch mtore miserable he would have been in the future if her “No” had been “Yes” instead. But a man who is really in love will do well to propose once more after a rejection. A woman very often does not realise the value of a thing* till she has lost it. And if she sees that the man she has rejected seems able to exist without her she may’ fall in love with him from sheer perversity. There are plenty) of very ideal marriages to be seen on all sides which have begun with “No” and ended with ‘ Yfj>.” And l>oth the husband and wife will not fail to tell yon that they are very glad it all ended as it did. But this was only in cases where the man was perfectly certain that she was the one woman in the whole world for him. and that without her life would not have been worth living; and that he ignored her “No” because lie was so certain of this. If he wasn't sure of this, he had better have taken her “No” as final, and rejoiced all the days of his life that she said it. as to marry the wrong woman is a deed that any sane man will never live to rejoice at. ® ® ® POLLY OF BORROWING TROUBLE. There are some unhappy persons who seem fated to go through life with a constitutional tendency to despondency. We all know and meet them daily, and they’ can always see a cloud here none exists. With most of these persons it is simply a matter of exercising the will. Anxiety' about present trouble or ])rospective difficulties never brought any good to those who indulged in it. The successful ones in life are those who have been buoyant in spirit, and who resolutely refuse to allow the cares of life to unduly depress them. Instead of alloxv-

ing the mind to broml over things that cannot be helped, it should be set to work upon the duty that lies nearest to it. Worrying al»out matters does not improve them in the slightest degree: on the contrary, it xveakens tin* pm pose, robs the physical nature of its vitality, and totally unfits us to cope "itJi the obstacles that lie in our path. I’he most shocking mistake, and one that is unfortunately only too frequently made, is to meet trouble half-xvay. I hese xvill come soon enough; they do not want anv encouragement. and very often when they do come they are not half so formidai’le as x Ve imagined ‘ they would be. Anticipation in some cases is woi sc than the reality . ® ® ® MORE SLEEP FOR WOMEN. it is a xvell-knoxvn fact among physicians. nurses, and those generally interested in the restoration of health, that the percentage of xvomen among the middle ami upper classes xvho retire early is very small. There are many xvomen so constituted that the wear and tear of daily' life consumes to a great extent their vitality, xvhich can only be restore! by mean's of perfect re | wise. Isspeeia Ily are long, unbroken hours of rest necessary- for xvives and mothers. all of whom are giving their strength unreservedly, and getting little physically in return, save that which is derived from sleep. Those xvho earnestly" desire to use the most effective means for the preservation of health ami beauty should not fail to keep early hours. One xvriter says the common dandelion is a perfect soporific. Txvo or three leaves chexved just before going to bed xvill induce sleep, no matter hoxx nervous or xvorried a man max’ be. I he leaves ran be dried easily’ for xvintr use, and the best of them is that when used to woo sleep there is no morning headache or weariness such as invariably folloxvs the use of opiates.