MUNDANE MUSINGS

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 72, 16 June 1927, Page 4

MUNDANE MUSINGS

PARTIES WE NEVER WENT TO It sounds Irish, but it's true! There are parties to which we were never invited, in which we never set foot, and yet of which it is difficult to realise that we ourselves were not in the thick of them. Certain parties, in books, for instance. The Mad Matter’s tea party in “Alice in Wonderland” —most of us feel we have really listened to the lunatic conversation buzzing about that table where hot tea had to be poured on the dormouse’s nose. Dickens has written of several parties at which we feel we have been delighted guests; the Christmas party of Scrooge’s nephew, for instance, and the dormitory revel organised by Steerforth, and summed up by him in the words: “I say, young Copperfield, you are going it!” Other classic parties where we were spiritually “among those present” have been given (says Berta Ruck .in an English paper) by Shakespeare—the dinner dance, to wit, at which Romeo met Juliet; by Scott, for instance, the wedding party where the bride trod a measure with her rejected sweetheart, while .

Mer mother did fret and her father did fume. And the bridegroom stood dangling his bonnet and plume; While the bride-maidens whispered “ ’Twere better by far To have matched our fair cousin with young Lochinvar.

Then, to take a modern instance, how many theatregoers must have exclaimed: “Oh, that is like a Saturday evening at our house!” as they watched-the (stage) week-end party of “Hay Fever.”

Parties to which we never went are sometimes so “conveyed” to us by guests with the gift of mimicry that we are able to say: “I feel as if I had been there!”

Prom some parties we. return trembling with terror —cannibal feasts at which we represented the bill of fare. What a relief to realise it was only a nightmare! “Imagination parties” are known to most of us. In these we can give “scrumpchus” dinners where nothing goes wrong. The waiting, the food, the drinks, the flowers, and our new frock —all are perfection. The guests, too —what an ideal gathering! At the dream dinner party we can put A, whom we adore, next to our cherished B. Both these people love us, while hating each other in real life. At the dream table they sit seeing each other for once as we see them. And near them we can recognise faces of guests impossible to ask to parties we really give, really attend. nowadays. C, for instance, is out in India, and will not get leave for years. But at a moment’s notice here is C., at the top of his old form, in his handsomest looks. '£>., our charming D., got married to the world’s most devastating bore (who incidentally disapproves of us), and never goes to parties without him. In dreams we never think of asking him: she comes alone, and i.s radiant and unchanged. Unchanged, too, is E.. the guest of honour at this fictitious feast. Last time we met in real .life. E.’s hair was white, her dear face drawn with illness. At the dream party again E.’s sympathy bathes a gathering in couleur de rose softer and more becoming than the light of those candles she loved to grbup and arrange around the flowers, the fruit, the coloured glasses of her own oncehospitable table. “Once?” Yes—E. does not give, or come to parties, now. Silent that voice of joyous greeting. Shut, kind bright eyes that

“took in” the new frock, tne progress of the flirtation, the whole look of a tableful of young guests. Lost to us. that zestful sympathy which "made” any party into a revel not to be forgotten:— Come back to us in the silence of ’ the night; Come in the smiling silence of a dream. .

Dream feasts! Dear shadow guests! Perhaps these parties, to which only in dreams we “go,” remain for some of us the very best of all.

DANCE AT “FERNLEIGH”

CHEERY FUNCTION Masses of golden-hued chrysanthemums and vivid green autumn foliage brightened the rooms at “Fernleigh,” Lower Symonds Street, last Saturday evening, on the occasion of a charming little dance given there by Miss L. Smith, in honour of the approaching marriages of Messrs. S. Cochrane and G. Bowler. The brides-elect, the Misses Winifred Gardiner and Norton, were also guests of honour. About forty guests were entertained and dancing was indulged in, interspersed with a number of musical items, which gave added variety to a very pleasing evening.

Should milk burn wjhile being heated, pour it into a vessel standing in cola water and throw in a pinch of salt. Stir well, and the burnt taste will disappear.