Habits of Men and Women.

Te Aroha News, Volume V, Issue 213, 30 July 1887, Page 7

Habits of Men and Women.

"Just look at that gul !" "Yes; it is Miss Blank. What about her ?" " Don't you see her tongue ?" "Oh, yes Lsn't ifc perfectly dreadful? They say she always sticks it out like that when she's thinking about anything-." The young woman in question was promenading the cast side of State-street early ! yesterday morning, attired in a bewitchingco.stume and a penshe expression , while the tip of her little tongue protruded in a ! manner anything but fasoinating between ! two lips, of the description known to novelists as coral. " Yes," said one of her femi- ! nine acquaintances, " She always does thab when thoughtful or worried. It's one of those teriible habits which, when once contracted, stick closer than a million brothers. Miss Blank began it when a child, and no one ever took the trouble to break her of it. Now, poor girl, it mortifies her tenibly to be told about it, though, of course, sheis anxious to cuie herself. But then, nearly everyone lvas some cuiious little habit which he would be \eiy glad to break if he could; some trick more or less unpleasant, caused in the fiist place probably by nervousness. We all know the man who tugs at his moustache and the one who is peipetually pulling up his collar. Then there is the gill who is always rubbing one eye, as if in search of a stray eyelash, and the man who can't be quite happy without some moio or less fragile article to twibt and turn and wind about in his fingers. Anything and everything, from your fine lace handkerchief to your new and extremely delicate paper cutter, is sacrificed to the demand of nervousness which possesses him, and yet yoxi can't iind it in your heart to deprive him of his plaything. He is quite happy and at his ea«e so long as he is allowed to twirl and twist as much as he wants to, but bereft of the temporary object of hi? affections he would be abjectly miserable, and you know it. Many a man can talk fluently and well while winding something— anything about his finger, who, without it, would be consfrained, awkward, nlent. One of the most annoying forms of this disease is the incessant tattoo Avhich some people keep up on their knees or the table, or whatever happens to be most convenient as a keyboard. I have noticed that musicians usually indulge this habit, and it is a very trying one, though I don't know that it is worse than 'twiddling your thumb.' You don't know what that is ? Why, clasping your hands with the fingers interlaced, and then moving the thumbs blowly, very slowly, round each other. Nearly all old. English people are addicted to this habit, and look upon it as a refuge from ennui during times of enforced idleness, such as that ' blind man's holiday,' when it is too dark to work or read, and yet not dark enough, according to English notions, to light the gas. At this time an old English woman will sit and ' twiddle her thumbs ' go many times from right to left and then f o many times from left to right, until one begins to think she has discovered the secret of perpetual motion. The habit gains such a hold upon men that they are unable to sit unoccupied for a moment without immediately beginning to ' twiddle.' Of course everyone knows people who bite their nails, and nearly all of us can remember some girl who has destroyed what was intended for a pretty mouth by a senseless fashion of biting, or rather gnawing afc her lip. This is one of the most difficult) habits to break, and at the same time one of the commonest. If the lower lip is the one attacked the pretty curve is in time destroyed and the fulness flattened out, while if the upper lip is ill-treated the results are almost worse, for it becomes lengthened in a very unbecoming manner. Then some women bite the inside of their lips at the side, just at the ' gusset ' of the mouth, and this ends in a chronic pout. lam convinced that if the girls who indulge in this trick realised fully its ill effects they would make more serious efforts to overcome it. It is comparatively easy to do this when one is young, and it is quite possible to break children of such habits. "There are lots of other curious little ways peculiar to individuals. I know a man who, when embarrassed, always taps the side of his nose with his little finger, and a girl who is so given to pushing back her hair behind her left ear that she has worn a bald spot there. "