GIRLS OF TO-DAY

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 195, 7 November 1927, Page 13

GIRLS OF TO-DAY

AUTHOR’S OPINION FAR TOO BOISTEROUS | “I think young men and women axe very different from those of my young days,” declared Sir Edmund Gosse recently, when he celebrated his TSth birthday. The famous writer was staying at a Bournemouth hotel recuperating after his recent illness. The woman of 21 is. of course, much more emancipated, and manages things | for herself,”'’ he continued. “She has a very great advantage over the girls of my youth, but 1 think there is danger sometimes that in defending her liberties she neglects the graces a little. But on the whole I think the women of to-day are a great advance on what their grandmothers were. “I wish, however, they were not quite so boisterous—they are, I am afraid, just a little , boisterous. No “Cave Men” “As to the young men, I think they make up for the boisterousness of the girls by being so very gentle and gracious. It is rather amusing. “Here, in Bournemouth, I find it a little difficult to distinguish who are the men and who the women—the only distinction seems to be the somewhat abbreviated skirt. “The young man of to-day is much better behaved than when I was young. There is an absence of anything like brutality. “That is why I find it so . difficult to know where the authors of the mediocre type of novel of to-day find their types. “There is, for instance, the strong young man who breaks up the furniture. T do not think he exists at all. “At the same time, I don’t think it would be fair to say that the young man of to-day is less vigorous than he i used to be.” R.L.S.’s Prophecy One of Sir Edmund’s most precous memories is his lifelong friendship with Robert Louis Stevenson. “His last letter was written to me.” he said, “and in it he said a very curious thing. “He said there seemed to be a, precipice just in front of him, and that he saw himself falling down it, while he saw me going quite slowly down the long decline in life. “Before lie finished the letter he had a fatal stroke. That was, I th'lik, a very extraordinary prophecy. “I still find life and my memories very pleasant,” Sir Edmund concluded. “But I have survived so many of my friends that I am a little conscious of passing into the background.”