Mundane Musings

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 277, 13 February 1928, Page 4

Mundane Musings

Gentlemen Prefer Fools 1 “What are you thinking about? I once asked a man at dinner when, at the end of ten minutes during which I had been holding forth on a subject that at the moment was interesting me to the exclusion of all else, I noticed that he was gazing intensely at me. “I was thinking; how deliciously that light overhead catches your liair,” he answered. For a moment I felt perfectly furious, for what I had been talking about was a matter of the gravest moment to me and my entire life, and, in that he was a very great and intimate friend, I thought might be of some interest and concern to him. And then I realised that I had been in danger of committing the worst solecism a woman can commit. In other words, I had been in earnest about something wholely unconnected with himself; I had been taking myself seriously! The Man’s Ideal! For, except on rare occasions, a man simply hates a woman to take herself seriously, though he may take himself as weightily as a f load of pig-iron! A man in relationship to women, with the exception maybe of his wife, is always rather like a small boy with a butterfly-net. He likes to dash after the pretty creatures, and, having caught one, to watch it as it rests on his hand, admiring the sheen and flutter of its gossamer wings. Ho may be very kind and gentle with it, and during its brief captivity give it a very good time, but he does not want to hear its views about life, or listen to its soul-processes! This attitude, often unconscious on his part, is undoubtedly a relic of the days when man alone played an active part in life, and it was woman’s role to watch and wait, and to keep the human and social relationships restful and comforting. Before we took on his responsibilities and mental outlook, man came to us for refreshment and relaxation, and if now our roles coincide or sometimes even are reversed, we, as serious, preoccupied, often harassed creatures, are too new a development to be fully comprehended. It is undoubtedly sometimes irritating to be paid a foolish compliment when one is internally aboil with some knotty problem crying to be aired, but it is only another tiny bit of grist for the flexibility and finesse with which our sex has always been accredited. The Value of Attraction “If this is a clever woman, then give me a stupid one,” a man said to me once, after meeting one of the profoundest feminine thinkers of the age, who took her brain too seriously to dress herself neatly or becomingly. If you can amuse dnd interest a man he will forgive you almost anything He will forgive you for not marrying him, for laughing at him, for spending his money, for having thick ankles, even. But he will never forgive you for boring him. “She has a great many faults, but she has never bored me yet,” a man once said in my hearing of his wife, not especially pretty or clever, who had tantalised and tormented and disobeyed him for ten years of a marriage that was apparently a perfectly happy one. BRIDGE AFTERNOON Mrs G. Hutchison, of Remuera, gave a bright bridge afternoon last week at her home, which was attractively decorated with bowls of beautiful lilies and rose-coloured flowers. She wore a smart gown of ficelletinted lace, showing an attractive needle-run design, to receive her guests, who included: Mrs. Herman, who wore an embossed frock of wistaria and blue chenille georSG Mrs. Hyams, in a frock of Saharashaded lace. . . Mrs. Spencer, who chose an ensemble of beige lace and georgette. Mrs. Palmer, in a georgette frock of mist blue toning. , Mrs. Halligan, whose frock' was of black georgette and Chantilly lace. Mrs. Way, in a frock of flower-pat-terned ninon. Miss Sharman, in a frock of primrose georgette. Miss McCoy, wearing a briar rose chiffon frock. a