MUNDANE MUSINGS

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 77, 22 June 1927, Page 4

MUNDANE MUSINGS

THE THINGS I HAVEN’T TOLD YOU The fact that' the spoken word will never return has been turned into a proverb and a warning, but little-has been said about the words which are never uttered, the silent moment which passes before you have time to say what is in your heart. In that beautiful book. “Thunder on the Left,” George says to his wife, after an emotional moment: “God bless you . . . Don’t forget any of the things I haven’t told you.” It is, perhaps, the saddest sentence in the world, the eternal plea of the inarticulate, the refuge of the shy, the curse of the English race, “Don’t forget any of the things I haven’t told you,” but it is remembering the things he has said that hurts, says an English writer. Sighing, you recollect the time when having told you a great many things in the drawing-room, he stood for 20 minutes in the draughty hall to tell you a few more, and then rang up from the call-box at the station to remind you to be sure and not go out to-morrow, “if there's still an east wind, promise, cross your heart and darling, sweet, I just wanted to tell you ” It’s no use advising me to read those little cheer-up articles. “Never mind, girlie, he may not say as much as he used to, but he loves you more deeply and tenderly than ever,” because I simply don’t believe it. I don’t believe that still -waters run deep, I don’t believe silence is golden, or that the brook is necessarily shallow because it babbles. And if it is, I don’t care I

I -would far rather people told me that they liked me, or my new hat, or the ginger cake,* glady, impulsively, even a trifle untruthfully, ra,ther than spend hours in silent meditation, totting up the exact state *of their affections: “Can I truthfully say I am very fond of the girl, or do I only like her? Do I really think .that shade of green suits her? Hand on my heart, can I say I think her baby is pretty? I don’t know, perhaps it would be better not to say anything about it.” So they preserve a “discreet” and damnable silence and—oh, you niggards in speech, how I loathe your bleak silences, your “better not mention it!” Strangely enough, it is always the agreeable things that are suppressed, most people are quick enough to tell you that you have a hole in your stocking, or aren’t looking very well. “I meant to tell Mary how much we enjoyed her party. I quite forgot to tell Lucy how sweet I thought she looked in her new dress. Mrs. Brown was saying how clever Myra’s little boy was. I ought to have told Myra.” These * well-intentioned, if silent, moments go by, never to be recaptured, and Violet is never told how much we love her—Tom, how glad we are to see him again; Lettice, how much we admire her drawing-room cushions, or how clever she is at arranging flowers. It may be forgetfulness, it may be shyness, it, but oh, do remember some of the nice things you haven’t told us!