THE LADIES’ WORLD.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXVI, Issue 2371, 11 December 1908, Page 7

THE LADIES’ WORLD.

WOMEN OF EMPTY LIVES

It is odd how self-revealing a woman will bo sometimes when she is least conscious of it. A woman will often say that she does not want to . move into the “country”—by which she really means the city suburb —be- . cause she_is afraid she will be lonely. It never occurs to this woman (says a writer in the “Ladies’ Home J our- * nal”) that by such a remark she condemns herself. A woman need never be lonely even in the most secluded country .place if she has inner resources of mind or heart. It is almost invariably the woman of empty mind and empty life who 'dreads the “loneliness of the country,” who wants to 'keep close to the lights of the city, and who mistakes the superficialities of the town for the things that are worth while. If a woman were truthful she would acknowledge that it is not the loneliness of the country that appals her so much as it is the realisation of the loneliness and the barrenness of her own mind: of her own nature: of her own life. The country is rarely lonely to the woman who has something in her. THE WAY OF A MOTHER. A mother Had given up ail hope of teaching her little son to be tidy around the house: of putting things where they belonged after using them. Punishment-Deemed merely to arouse a spirit of stubbornness and antagonism. She was practically at her wits’ end. One evening, however, she chanced to read an article on West Point. _ It emphasised particularly the discipline as carried out in details of neatness around the barracks, It occurred to her to appeal to the little chap’s patriotism. Gradually, by means of army stories and deeds relating to the nation’s defenders, she awoke a keen interest in'the minor details of army discipline. She then went back to the West Point story. In a very short time she was calling her son “My little West Point cadet:” his room was fitted up to represent a room at the famous Acad- * emy, and every morning he set everything in order, threw back the bedclothes, etc., before coming downstairs. The idea appealed to him, and unconsciously he set for himself 'a - West Point standard, which was carried into the less important parts of his daily life. Here, by suggestion, was successfully accomplished what punishment failed to do. It is a pity that more mothers do not see the value of this simpler and more effect-

ive kind of training Particularly effective, too, is the method where the suggestion appears to originate ’ wih the child, since children will be ■atl the more readily follow out a suggestion which they feel to have come from themselves. The little brain is very active and hugely enjoys the pleasure of originating. WHERE HUSBANDS FAIL. There is a great deal of dullness in life which cannot bo escaped and must be borne like other trials, but there is a good deal that might be avoided. The load falls most heavily on women who have married uninteresting men and cannot escape from the monotony which rests like a cloud on the home. This burden' sometimes becomes intolerable and the women who have to carry it seek refuge in dangerous excitements. A woman of pro-

lament social' position, who had been charged with a serious offence against the marriage vow, when asked how she had allowed herself to fall into what was naturally abhorrent to her, replied passionately: “My husband’s dullness drove me wild; lie had no interest but liis business, and I never got a breath of anything else.” Many husbands do not realise that K a woman needs something more than clothes and food and a pew in church ; that she has imagination, mental energy, tastes that clamor for recognition, that she needs rest and pleasure. Such men 'keep their legal vows ,but are sometimes unfaithful in their promise not only to love but to cherish also. The woman may be killed by -monotony quite as easily as by more active forms of cruelty. She needs variety of interests and

plenty of fresh air for her mind. 'When a woman marries a man who is dull by nature she must face her 1 late ;but many men arc unnecessarily dull—they might become interesting bv leaving business in the store or factory and taking a jlittle news, >a good book, a fresh interest home to the woman who is tied within four walls and longs for a sight or a.breath of the world.