THE MYSTERY OF CHARM

Hutt News, Volume 3, Issue 7, 10 July 1930, Page 3

THE MYSTERY OF CHARM

To please is an art of which the niere technique is so volatile that it must be inhaled. It is an art which lias mysteries t»hat are penetrable only after novitiat'esT'patient atfd: prolonged. It is ail art which, once apprehended, may take. you^anyiwhere, .bring-you all things, seat you where you wish. But it is an art known only to a few. Rarely is th« veil of it lifted.

Aspirants must have predisposing gifts. They must -have health, happiness, humour. With these attributes they may s-ucceed, but only on condition that they do not try to. It is very pernicious to think that effort is helpful. In tlie effort is failure. The proper effect must, like repartee, -be spontaneous. It muat be radiated, like light and like love. Lucretius understood that. "Try to please," he said, "and you are lost." With effort and energy 'one may become almost anything, and remain a tedious person. The most tiresome people are precisely those who are full of energy and effort. If you want to please you'must be different. To that end, intensify your individuality. If you. have no individuality, cultivate one.

The only things worth knowing a?e the things that cannot^be taught. The art of pleasing is one of them. It has, though, its apprehensible elements. But these are never expounded in the schools, tie result being that yoiung people, otherwise promising, fail to realise that their first duty in life is to pfeaae. What their second is, we have yet to discover. The-tfudimeats-are id&e -apparent. You must -be happy. Nothing, except disease and genius, can •hinder you more than potpourris of melancholy. If you wish people to welcome you, get them to tell you their troubles; if you wish them to avoid you1, tell them your own. But what is happiness 1 Heine said it consisted in being happy. It were difficult to be more profound, yet tie dictionary (appear* to have succeeded; It says that happiness is a state of good fortune. Tastes differ. But if happiness is not a state of fortune, good, or bad, it must be something else. Hugo, always magnificent, said it was a banquet. Another poet declared that dreams were true while they last. If you can. but contrive to live in them, there is happiness, there is the feast.

In any event, if you want to please, you have got to be happy? But not too happy. There- is nothing more melancholy than people who are always gay. It is not only melancholy; it is dangerous. Don't be tpo.^ay, unless, indeed, it is your great good luck to be still a child. Children laivgh for no reason, and what better, reason could there be But the laughter which is gracious in childhood is not becoming in age. No emotion isr—save joy, fox that is always serene. Be serene, therefore. Leave laughter to others,, but excite it if you can.

Huanour is, therefore, advisable. So, I also, is tact. Humour-saves situations, tact prevents mistakes, it is painful lor people to be misunderstood. To \>e understood is often still more so. Tact is the one pilot that can steer you through that channel. Be tactful, •therefore. It iseasy enough when- you know how,.and seems easier still when you don't. Yet the secret of it is but a. bundle of mixed negatives.. Tactful people do not contend, they concede. They do not eomplain>- they console. They are not emphatic They do not interfere. They never argue, -fclrey never explain, thy neever disappoint, they never til a lie, or, if they do, they stick to it. . Therein -are the lesser mysteries of this -art. They enlighten the neophyte without perfecting the adept. They will not serve to pass you, initiate, into the art itse-tf. They disclose what you should be,. iiot wkat you should do. i They provide no criterion whereby you ! may at once decide whether an action I is, or is not, pleasing^ To please generally is not to please profoundly, and they alone do both who put their vibrations in tune with tie I vibrations of* others. There it is. To 'vary with another's varying moods, to 'be not only gracious but intuitive, not merely attractive but sympathetic, to feel as others feel, to put yourself in their place, to arise with it-heir rising affd with them subside—in the ability to do that is the great secTet, the only secret of all. It is the core of the law of .harmonies, the impalpable but prodigious quintessence of charm.