“NOTHING BUT THE TRUTH”

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 628, 3 April 1929, Page 4

“NOTHING BUT THE TRUTH”

FRANK CRITICISM WITHOUT RUINED FRIENDSHIP. (By EVELYN VIVIAN) I sometimes think that, if girls—or women!-—could disguise their handwriting so as to make it absolutely unrecognisable by their dearest friends and enemies, a most salutary little game might be introduced at hen-parties. It would be played , something like this. Slips of paper j would be handed to each member of i the group, together with a pencil, and | on each slip would be written some \ kindly but candid comment on a notably unlovable streak in a friend’s —or enemy's—character. Relating to those present, I mean; and saying right out what one has not the moral courage to declare even to one's most intimate friends. With handwriting that could not possibly be associated with the respective commentators, and absolute immunity from discovery. what revelations there would be! Nothing-but-the-truth all day and every day would make our world impossible to live in. But just a littV of the truth about ourselves, once in a while, might work wonders toward rehabilitating us in our own and others’ esteem. Only by such stealthy methods, I fear, could tjie mutual-criticism game be played to any helpful purpose. I have seen too many friendships wrecked by just a word or two of well-meant but illreceived candour to believe that even approximate frankness is possible between members of our ultra-sensitive sex. “I have never been able to feel the same toward So-and-So since she said such-and-such a thing to me,” is a confession I have repeatedly heard from quite nice, intelligent women, who humbly admitted the justice of the criticism, but could not control the instinctive revulsion of their hearts. Heads and hearts, alas, so often refuse to work in harmony. But if healthful criticism could not be allocated to the right source, and no friendships were imperilled thereby. I feel convinced that women, most of whom are conscious or subconscious ■amateur psychologists, would derive fun as well as food for thought from these hen-parties whgre a little mutual henpeeking was part of the programme, and the whole thing was "wrapt in mystery.”