DOOM OF FRIVOLITY.

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 5, Issue 205, 1 September 1916, Page 3 (Supplement)

DOOM OF FRIVOLITY.

PAKISTAN ACTRESS'S SERMON. Only two short years ago "all Purs' would have spoken of nothing else for at least .1 month, says the Pans correspondent of the "Pall Mall Gazette,". To-day the news evokes but a passing comment-. Yet it is something more than a mere chance event; at bottom it , marks tlui turning of a page of history, and a s-iich calls lor comment. Let it be known, then, that the most Paris'unne of actresses, the.dol of the Boule. card pul'lic and easily the first favour, ito of tlie footlights, lias deeded to retire from tlie stage. In doing so she ' following no whim of the moment, but making a graceful exit while her fame is s+till .something to conjure with : n the theatrical world. To an interv i-wer she thus explained lier reasons: "I prefer to abdicate rather than to In overthrown. The day of such as I am is past. After the war tlio piiltljc will line none of us. Dramatic author- are like everyone else, and must play to tha fancy of the day. That fancy will, tor a very long time to cmiie, have no patience w.th the ver\ common kind of boulevard play. Jim not simple enough to think that this war is g n : in make us models of virtue from one day to another, hut T do !J say it is going to change our mode of life from A tn Z The France of tomorrow will have tn settle down to hard work : hivoloy, mid all that comes from it will have uK take 3 back place In fact, inr years to 1 nme I will he ,1 thine unknown we used to eondone mtu ,1 u.ieraiit smile in the past w : ll he ruled out Altogether in the wrary future. The Dame aux Camelias

will be eclipsed by the simple, stay-at-home housewife. "Women have had too easy a time for the past two decades. Men were at theV feet, and they could do what tliev pleased with them. Women ruled the world, and the daughters of Aphrodite r.eigned supreme. Now that the parts of our men have been take from us never to return, woman will have to change her tact cs. Man wiLI be a prize worth winning, and there will not be enough prxes to go round. By on" 1){ those curious turns of the wheel I life, the domesticated, loving, cherish •ng, clinging to the husband' kind of woman is going to come intn her own uga-n. "Women who have nursed the wounded, worked hard at war chanties, sowing, kn'tting and what not, wi'l have learned that all is not dress and glitter in this world, and that woman v.as made to be something more than a plaUhmg. I'nlike the late girl of the period, they will no longedespise the old-fashioned, hum-drum joys of the bom,', ol moth-rhood an I of doinost'city. Tins s the atmosphere we are drifting into: indeed, te country canhnoi be rebuilt again without it. Boulevard plays can find no room for sin h ;i picture. The Paris'onno a - we know her has got to eo, i| ; . | |;)S not already gone. 1 see it coming, and rather than become an overthrown idol 1 prefer to blow out my lamp and stall out of the temple on the tip of my toes before it all comes clattering down about my hoad."