OVERTONES.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXV, Issue 4775, 12 November 1924, Page 1

OVERTONES.

THEIR IMPORTANCE. In personal relations it is the overtones that count. It’s not what you say, for instance, so much as what you signify. Your gesture, your tone of voice, your air, these strike deeper into me than your words. The young lady may say she hates you, just simply hates you, but if she accompany this statement with a come-hither look of her eyes and a slight pressure of the hand, what matters the tone compared with the overtones ?’ You may call me a miserable rapscallion that ought to be hanged, but if you make a jovial grin .thereby and thump me playfully on the tack I am flattered. One woman said to another, speaking of a third, “ I think she’p a good woman ” —accent on the good. And the other heard only the ovei-tones of the remark and answered “' I don’t like her.” No human being, not even female, is better than she ought to be, yet if you say of a woman she is no better than she ought to be you aie starting a scandal. The overtones of that perfectly truthful remark are very naughty. Ite business, it’s not so much the gist of what you do as the way ybu do it. It wais said of Sheridan that he could borrow five pounds of you and make you feel he was doing you a favour. There are experts in overtones, who can refuse your request and still have you feeling you have been highly complimented. ovtertones. He suggests, he titillates overtones. He suggests, he titllates the imagination, he lures the subconscious desires, he deftly wafts incense before ybur spirit’s nose. What are arguments, facts, and such like wooden matters ? It’s ihislon we want —rainbows, whispers, hints, airy nothings. These persuade men. Though, of course, we will not admit it.