Courting and Flirting.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XXVII, Issue XIII, 28 September 1901, Page 619

Courting and Flirting.

NOT ALL BILLING AND COOING. Courting and flirting differ from each other as a good thing differs from a bad one. Courting is good and beautiful, flirting is flippant and vulgar. Flirtation has been described by Punch as “a spoon with nothing in it”; courtship, though it may be a spoon too, is a spoon with something in it—that is to say, the inten tion to marry. Flirting means attention without intention. We need not be so long in love making as used to be the fashion, but a certain amount of time spent in wooing is owed to any girl who is deemed worthy of being asked in marriage. When a man proposed too prematurely, as she thought, to a certain Scotch girl, she answered, “’Deed, Jamie, I’ll have you, but you must give me my dues of courting for all that.” She was right. The girl who makes herself cheap and throws herself at her lover ceases to charm. The celebrated physician, Abernethy, wrote to the lady of his choice, Miss Anna Threlfall, that he would like to marry her, but as he was too busy to make love, she must entertain his proposal without further preliminaries. There would be no excuse for a man less usefully employed, than Abernethy to rush things in this way, and even he might have discovered that love making or anything else that softens hearts and sweetens manners is a waste of time. There is a tendency now to put everything “through” by telegraph or telephone, but there should be one exception. If big business and diplomatic transactions, and the affairs of the head generally are now settled in no time, it should be different with the affairs of the heart. We cannot afford to

cut short courting days, for in them men and women are at their best. We see this amongst birds and beasts; the resplendent plumage and glossy fur which they obtain in the courting days of spring are not more natural than are the generous feelings and enthusiastic ambitions of young men and young women when they gently turn to thoughts of love.

LOVERS’ “CASTLES IN THE AIR.” At an examination for a civil service appointment a candidate was observed to take something from his pocket; whenever a stiff piece of work was reached, out it came. The examiner thought that he had caught the young man copying, and demanded to see what was in his hand. The man blushed but handed it to him. It was the photograph of the girl whom he hoped to marry if the appointment were obtained. He had been gaining inspiration from her dear face. This is an illustration of the power which love has to urge us to be and to do our best. When taking delightful walks on sweet summer evenings, pure and faithful lovers build castles in the air. Some of these may reach to heaven, for they may be the beginning of mutual improvement and mutual work that will fit the happy pair, after a useful life here, for a better one beyond. When a young man falls in love his heart is put to school; and our hearts want schooling even more than do our heads. “You love? That's high as you shall go; For ’tis as true as gospel text. Not noble then is never so. Either in this world or the next." COURTING AFTER MARRIAGE. Some English tourists who had arrived at an inn at Achill Island, off the coasts of Mayo, asked the landlord what he could give them for dinner. “I can give you three kinds of mate,” he replied. “I ean give you

pork, I can give you ham. and I can give you bacon.” After partaking of this varied assortment the tourists rang the bell, and asked the landlady, who answered it, if they could have any kind of sweets. She took trounsel with her husband. "Those English chaps want sweets, do they’.’” he said. ’’Then go down to the shop and buy twopenny worth of sugar stick and send it in to them.” I am reminded of this When I see people making love. What can they have to talk so much about? They live on the same ’’mate” in different forms, or perhaps there is no “mate” at all in the diet of love, but only sweets—endless sugar sticks. It would be well if the spoony pair would keep a few of these to supply food for conversation after marriage. How stem and taciturn do many couples become in private life when they have been a year or two married! That silence is not gold, but shows that the golden days of courtship are passed. A human heart, that most valuable thing in the world, has been won by courting; will it not be lost if all playfulness and sweets of love disapp<ar in a fewyears? The fact is. love, even more than friendship, needs to be kept in repair. In courting days before marriage there is demonstrative affection (too much of it, in the opinion of unsympathetic lookers-on) and selfsacrifice, and where' these are continued after it the result is conjugal felicity. A man should not only love his wife dearly, but he should tell her that he loves her, and tell her often.