Mundane Musings

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 132, 25 August 1927, Page 5

Mundane Musings

Sir —You Insult Me!

Moira leapt into the room wearing an expression of mixed horror and excitement. “My dear, I’ve got to tell you,” she announced. “I didn’t mean to at first, but I feel I must. It’s really getting too dreadful . . . it’s about Veronica.” “It would be!” said I. Veronica is Moira’s sister £ they hold very different views on life. “Last night,” went on my visitor, settling herself in an armchair and fixing me with tragic eyes, “we went to the Palmers’ dance and I was sitting in the conservatory with my partner, when Veronica came along with that tall man who’s staying with the Robinsons —you know —I think his name’s Carter —and —well—they didn’t see us. . . . and he kissed her.” “Oh, did he? What did she say?” “I couldn’t hear that, but I saw her dancing with him afterwards! Isn’t it dreadful! And what I want to know is what am I to do?” “What does she want you to do?” I inquired. Moira sighed impatiently. “Oh, she doesn’t know I saw them. I haven’t said anything yet. Why can’t she behave in a decent manner?” “What would that have been?” I asked, with interest. Moira frowned. “I see nothing funny in the fact that I can’t trust Veronica a yard. Why, if it had been me, I’d have told him never to dare to speak to me again!” Here I’m afraid I giggled. I could see Moira so plainly saying: “Sir—you insult me,” and stalking off, leaving the Robinsons’ guest transfixed with astonishment. Of course the girl who lets any and every man kiss her is an ass, to say the least of it, and will soon get a reputation for being cheap and therefore prove her own enemy in the marriage market. Bad taste never pays either in manners or appearance, and bad taste is only another name for mistaken judgment and a proof that one possesses tapioca in one’s head instead of the necessary brains. But the girl who makes a scene or indulges in heroics is really being a trifle ridiculous. After all, manners have changed if me nhaven’t, and what was a real insult in the days of our grandmothers, now is merely an everyday episode—and if a man does try to kiss a girl all she has to do is to laugh it off and say, “Now, don’t be silly. You know I shall have to leave you if you begin to be absurd,” and that, as a rule, is quite enough. She may, of course, be unfortunate enough to come across a really unpleasant type of individual, but that doesn’t happen often, and when it does her best step is to cut him out of her acquaintance. You can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear, and really objectionable people are best eliminated from one’s list of friends. But an attempted kiss may easily be the forerunner of a proposal of marriage or an effort to discover what type of girl you are, and it’s always so simple to refuse and explain you don’t do that sort of thing and then leave the next move to the man!

BACK TO PLUMPNESS

IS THE GREAT FAST TO END? By Rene Martin Rumour has it that we are to let ourselves grow plump again—or at any rate plumpish. Curves are soon to be as fashionable as bones; for the lean days are drawing to a close, and we may drink our early tea instead of that so-dready hot water. Breakfast need no longer consist of dry toast —or nothing. Afternoon tea may include something more than a cigarette and a sigh. And then at lunch and at dinner—sweets to the sweet-toothed, cream, potatoes, soup, thick as well as clear. All those, and much more vve shall be able to enjoy once more with the new, ampler figure. One wonders who started the craze for attenuation? Was it really the doctors preaching diet and more diet, which meant, of course, less and less food. Or was it just the success of some one or two women, unable to get fat, who cleverly exploited their extreme slenderness? Wherever, or however, it started, this I feel sure of, that it has been a feminist movement; a generation of ■women vieing among themselves to attain a record in lightweights. SKINNY UNIFORMITY Men have always been the world’s professed gourmets, and though that does not really prove them any more fond of food, it gives them a sustaining pride in putting on flesh rather than in taking it off again. Also I doubt if they have ever really admired their women folk at their thinnest as much as those women have supposed. Anyhow, it can no longer be said that it is individual, or in any way startling, to be silent. It has been proved, by determination and self-sacrifice, that it can be done by practically anyone. In an age so restless, so given up to outdoor sports and dancing as this, very few young women are likely to become more than nicely “covered” even if they do indulge their natural and healthy appetites. GRACEFUL LINES Clothes will grow prettier and more graceful, because try as you will to admire what is being worn, you can’t truthfully associate grace with an eighth of material hung straight up and down on a knitting needle. And how much more becoming to the middle-aged woman is a style of dress that flows—and is fashionable. For the rest, the middle-aged woman, poor dear, will still have the worst of it. She may indulge a little, but it will have to be a little unless she has the courage of her appetite which tends to carry her beyond “plumpish” to fat. I write feelingly, as well I may. I am just going out to tea—that longcondemned meal—where the cakes will be all of the most forbidden. Still—one eclair—or shall it be one meringue? i Just to celebrate the return of the I “womanly figure.” Half a teaspoonful of glycerine with half a teaspoonful of lemon-juice will “cut” the phelgm when the throat is blocked and sore.