AS SEEN THROUGH WOMAN’S EYES

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XXV, Issue III, 21 July 1900, Page 137

AS SEEN THROUGH WOMAN’S EYES

How to Treat Your Wife in Sickness.

Truth is not always expedient. If you are crossing the Channel when there is a good swell on, and your wife is languidly inspecting the green, oily looking depths, and wishing herself at the bottom, it is wiser not to remark in a cheerful voice. ‘•You’ll be all the better for it when you get on shore. Reedy for duck and gren peas within half an hour after landing." There are few things more obnoxious than the aggressive cheerfulness of a •rood sailor. The mention of ham and eggs when one turns in loathing from i he driest of dry biscuits, is adding insult io injury. It is all very well for that aggressive person to walk the bridge and smoke, but to keep on suggesting food is to revive the horrors of the Inquisition. It is the greatest possible mistake to be always fussing after your wife's health. To follow her round with rugs and mackintoshes, to exclaim nervously if it rains, "You must not think of going out. my dear, you might get a chill, 'or to dissuade her from taking exercise by exerlastingly inquiring “Are your tired?" Trust her. my dear fellow, if she is, to say so. Don’t be always putting it into her head, it is quire useless for you to try and estimate her strength, or her powers of endurance by your own. You are a fairly stablie animal who can do to-morrow what you did to-day. and vice versa. She is a more highly strung piece of nervous mechanism. Though she walked eight miles on Saturday without fatigue, that isn't the slightest* guarantee she won't utterly collapse on Monday be fore she has done three. The great point about any feat of strength with her is—does she want to do it? If she does, the power wfil be there; if she doesn't and anything makes her, she wiil assuredly be ill- I don't mean she'll sham. She will be ill. A man couldn't to save his life, but then he s made differently; he has not. as yet, acquired anything to compare with the feminine facility for running down. Probably he has never tried to work continuously at the same terribly high tension. Centuries of open air life, field sports and beer have blunted his nervous system, and rendered hitu less emotional.

The great thing is to treat a woman philosophically. Humour her: if she says she is feeling much too tired to go out with you, say “Very well” placidly. Set her comfortably in a large armchair with a few cushions and a footstool, and then make yourself scarce. Come back in half an hour with a tit-bit of locafi gossip, and in nine cases out of ten she will jump up with alacrity, put on her hat. declare she feels quite rested, and insist on going out. Don't remind her that she was utterly done up. she has probably got over it. from being the burning idea of the moment it has slipped away into the limbo of forgotten things. If she has a headache, make her lie down, lower the blind and go away—but don’t commence to nail the ivy up underneath her window, or hold an animated conversation with the man in the opposite garden. Most of her ailments—of course I mean the indescribable ones which it wetfid puzzle any respectable practitioner to give a name to —can be cured by rest—or excitement —or a judicious mixture of both. The only difficulty is to know when to apply the remedies and how. It’s not half a bad plan to try first one and then the other. If your treatment is answering and she is looking brighter, don't re-open the subject by asking her “if she feels an> better.” say cheerfully. “Now you’re looking yourself again.” and she will feel ten |>er cent, brisker. If she is looking thoroughly “done up’’ and everything is a burden, don’t v.orry her to go anywhere; let her keep quiet, and if that does no good suggest she stays in bed. If twenty four hours of |x*rfec? won’t do anything for her. you may be sure there is something seriously the matter, and hud better go for the doctor. When she is really ill. with a definite

disease, not mere exhaustion, the best thing you can do is to efface yourself as much as possible and avoid giving trouble.

Take yourself out to lunch or put up with poached eggs. When you see her. be quietly cheerful: say. “I think you're looking letter, little woman.” and don't add “When are you going to get up?” or “Do you think you will be well enough to go with me to the Jones* to-mor-row night?'*

It sounds—though you probably don't mean if that way—as if you thought she was lying there for her own amusement.

II your wife be in pain, and you want to help her to bear it. or comfort her. you can't do anything better than sit by her side for half an hour and hold her hand. If you talk let it lie only a very little. in snatches, on cheerful topics. Not the war. or the alarming increase in the death rate.

Don’t behave as if her illness were a personal injury, but rent it as a necessary spell of dry dock, from which she wil ir merge al the better able to weather the storms of life.

Never mind if you can write your name on the sideboard, or if the table decorations are corn pt remains; don't tell her of these things if she asks feebly. “How are you getting on. Jack, without me?" Say. no matter what the fib costs you. “Splendidly, dear. I'm quite enjoying being a bachelor again.’’

You’ll have your reward when a weak smile comes over her face and she whispers. “You dear old man. to make the best of it like that.” If she wakes with a headache, get up. light the fire, and make her a cup of tea. You'd think nothing of doing it if you wvr -camping out, or shotoing in the Rockies: so why should you when it is for the sake of the woman who is. or ought to be. more to you than all the world beside? —By One Who Knows.

How Royal Ladies Dress

I he young Queen of Holland is said to be the most economical of all sovereigns in the matter of dress.

The Empress Frederick of Germany, both before and since her widowhood, was characterised by a want of proper pride in her garbing, and is now to be seen in weeds that would be despised by the ordinary middle-class “relict." Ihe Princess of Wales has taught her daughters to dress well since their advent into society, although as growing girls their garments were Quakerlike in material and make. The lively and pretty Princess Charles of Denmark is. however, the only one of the three who cares in the least for a bwtve display of finery: the Duchess of Fife and the Princess Yictoria of Wales being usually as quietly gowned as is consistent with their exalted station, and being never so happy as when arrayed in the most inconspicuous of tailor-made dresses — conspicuous, nevertheless, for their quite wonderful smartness of cut. and the perfect, slim grace of the figures they cover. The Duchess of York was. in her girlhood, considered somewhat dowdy, but then means were limited at White Lodge, and the young Princess thought more of the good she could do for her neighbours than the garments in which she herself should be clad. Since her marriage she has. of course. Occupied a wholly different position, and she dresses accordingly, invariably with the greatest elegance and goed taste. She is bright-looking rather than beautiful, and she has Hie family tendency to embonpoint, but she has not. as the Duchess of York, been unsuccessful in maintaining the high standanl in dress set by her perennially voting and lovelv mother-in-law.

The Duchess of Albany has, of course, been obliged to dress ns a widow since her husband's death, as the Queen-mother is extremely strict iqton this point. Of late days.' and at exceptional times, such its the Diamond Jubilee festivities, her happyfaced. plump Royal Highness has been permitted to doll the garb of comparatively modified woe. and has evinced a rather pretty taste, a little bit offset by her Germ: of form.

and her want of what is commonly called “stvie.”

The Duchess of Connaught is inclined to l>r indiscriminate in her choice of a warn robe. and lacks the distinction that is known as putting* on. and carrying one's clothes well.

The Dowager Empress of Russia, like her sister, has always dressed exquisitely and in the richest materials. The wife of the reigning Czar is obliged, for reasons of State, to be both carefully and expensively robed, but she finds little evident pleasure in splendour, and wears her clothes somewhat listlessly, her lack of interest taking much from the Imperial effect.

The Empress of Germany is reputed to be the worst dressed woman of her

rank, or of ranks many degrees lower, in Europe, although she spends probably as much money as those who present a more admired aspect to the world. In a differing way she cares as little for pomp and circumstance as her neighbour of Russia: she is a good German frail, the best of wives and mothers and housekeepers, but an Empress no whit.

The Queen of Portugal dresses well, and shows her clothes to advantage, being the handsomest sovereign of her generation.

Another Royal lady whose taste in dress and whose beauty were once the talk of Europe, and who has changed sadly, is the ex-Em press Eugenie of France. There is no doubt that at one time she spent more money upon her frocks than would have sufficed to feed half rhe poor of Paris, and that, like Marie Antoinette before her. she contributed not a little by her extravagance to the downfall of the French Empire. In those days, poor woman, she was a being

worth dressing finely and worth travelling far to see. I'he Queen of Italy, who was once exceedingly handsome, but who has grow n course-looking with years, as is the way of southern women, has, or had, the reputation of being the most extravagant woman on earth in the matter of personal adornment. She has scarcely ever worn anything but white, but has. within recent days. Income impressed with the fact that she is too old for such exclusiveness. There is a pretty story told of how. when she confided her fears on the subject to the King, his gallant reply was to have a box forwarded from Paris containing several newly fashioned and magnificent dresses, all of them white. This courtesy revived her youth and spirit.— Lenny Pictorial.

The Turners.

A father with a. glorious sense of humour, or a mother wholly lacking in it. must have been responsible for tin' following list from the entries in ;» family Bible of some people named Turner. The names are those of the twelve children of the family, and were taken down by an English clergyman during a pastoral visitation. 1. Turnerina vie Margaret. 2. Titrnerannah de Mary Elizabeth. 3. Alfred Fitz Cawley de Walker. 4. Bernard de Belton. 5. Cornelius de Compton. fi. Turnerica Henriea Ulrica da Gloria de Lavinia Rebekah. 7. John de Hillgreave. s. Egniah de George Turner Jones. 9. Fighonghangal O Temanlugh Hope de Bindley. 10. Turnvvell William ap Owen de . Pruigh. 11. Turnerietta de Johannah Jane de Faith. 12. Faithful Thomas.