WOMAN'S WORLD

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LII, Issue 367, 19 April 1910, Page 6

WOMAN'S WORLD

THINGS MONEY CANNOT BUY. LOVE, BRAINS, HAPPINESS. Love is the divinest element in the huniiui. It is Cod's finest gift to man. It is the most powerful factor for good in tile whole world. Under its protecting wings nestle all the virtues, In marriage it means that two face life together, with each other, for each other, content with whatever life may bring if it leaves them each other. It means letting the small world outside dwindle into insignificance .while their larger world rises to the dignity of two have .become one. True love means all that is finest, most tender, most lasting, consecrated to union and unity for a lifetime. It comes to rich and poor alike; but it cannot be bought. When loveless money seeks to buy love by spreading out on the counter in the matrimonial market its stocks and bonds, houses and lots, bank accounts, automobiles, tine dress, position in society, travel abroad, and the others, and the iwoman looks languidly over the outfit where she has to take the owner too, and finally consents, he has not bought love. He has some understudy to love, an imitation, a combination of policy and pretence. There is never a sweet spontaneity, a word, a look, a tone, that splashes like water from an overfull fountain, but only the pettiness of cool, counterfeit emotion. He has closed an optioit on a partner in matrimony as he might on a block of stock. He has bought, not Cupid, hut cupidity. If wealth wants love, it must give love. It must be an exchange, not a purchase. The rich man must win love as the poorest man wins it—because of what he is, not for what he has.

Capital is in error when it says, pompously and arrogantly, <; lcan buy brains!" This is across the deadline. It can buy only the service of brains, their output, their product, but never the mind behind them, which generates new ideas as a rose-bush puts forth new blossoms. Money can buy a masterpiece of painting; but it cannot purchase the power to put on the faintest flesh tint nor even the power really to appreciate the marvellous eanvas'at it? true worth. So far as the depth, the secret, the sublime conception of some ideal,, realised by the artist's genius, the .picture may be as meaningless to its owner as though it was a cuneiform inscription. It may be to >him merely thirty-five dollars in a frame. The rich man who has genuine joy in his art collection receives it from some innate kinship with the artist's imagination that no money could buy, no love of money take away.

Money -can purchase a great library of books, bound in the finest levant, and harmoniusly arranged in sets; out it cannot bin- the magic power to create one single thought of some one of these great mind?, these souls reincarnated in typo, which has influenced countless thousands for centuries. Money alone could never bring the joy and companionship from books that comes as a benediction to some student in an attic, poor in money but rich in intellect. He can call the o-vo:itiv4t thinkers of the aires to speak with him from his little mantelshelf of classics, and feel their joyou* nearness to him as he comprehends and responds. He is living, for his brief hour of respite, in the great democracy and brotherhood of letters, aiid so absorbed that he does not note the growing dusk that begins to dim the page. This appreciation defies a mere cheque book. The man 'who is rich may have it, too; but it never came to him by purchase. THE ART OF DRESS.

Mrs. Flora Steel has advocated in the London Times a tax upon woman's dress on the grounds that dress is the luxury, if not the vice, of women, as tobacco and alcohol are the luxuries or the vices . of men. Mrs. Steel took as lier text a quotation from a newspaper, which cnn- ; tained the information that women who • intended to canvass were busy ordering costumes for the election compaign. "Velvet," it remarked, "is tlie prevailing note in these charming creations, which seem ideal gowns for the occasion." Mrs. Steel has a right to lie indignant against I the feminine passion for dress. Men, '• with their own peculiar missions and I weaknesses, will do well to regard it j rather with a scientific curiosity quite free from contempt. Dress is not one of i the most important things in the world; I but it is certainly quite as important as i many things upon which men spend a ! vast deal of time and trouble. Indeed. ! it is rather more important than nowaI days we are apt to suppose. It may be j one of the minor arts, but still an art, a i means of expression in terms of beauty 1 and more closely connected with life than I many of the greater arts. If we are to 1 complain of women in this matter of , dress we should complain not so much j that they take time and trouble over it. ' as that they do not regard it enough as an art, a means of expression. The trouble is that the best of women are too apt to conceive dress as a game of which the rules are fixed and frequently ! altered, not by themselves, but "by their ' dressmakers. Hence their clothes sometimes look both ugly and frivolous, just because they look irrelevant. Men's \ clothes are certainly ugly enough, but I their-'Ugliness is less tiresome because it ■■ does not attempt to express anything. It is, in the main, the result of a desire to spend as little time and trouble upon dress as possible. It is not an art at all, 'and with all its ugliness, it is not so depressing as had art. being the result not of failure, but of "mere Indifference. Dress, if it is to be an art at all. must he difficult, like all arts. It needs "fundamental brain work," as well as money and time, and those who cannot give brain work to it would "be wise to spend as little time and money on it as possible.

A DAINTY PINCUSHION.

In "Hints to Needlewomen," a London writer says: A pincushion that is dainty yet serviceable is one of the maim-s--shaped cushions four and a-half in.lies wide by six inches ling. This ;., .-,,ul!cd with iwool or bran und enured with white satin, or sateen, if ,o-t is an item. The outer cover is inau from two pieces of heavy linen with a narrow hemstiched hem running entirely around it. The pieces finished fit easily on the top and bottom of the cushion. The inner parts of the linen arc then decorated with tiny squares or Jilet or Cluny laee, with a design of leaves and scrolls in satin stitch and eyelet embroidery spreading around each bit of lace. The section intended for the top has a more elaborate design than the bottom piece. The upper «nd lower sections are joined by lace insertion just the width of the sides of the pincushion. This is overcast to the edges all round. One end is left open to slip in the cushion and is lightly overcast when it is in place, or can be joined by tiny button-holed loops on one edge and lace buttons on the lower side of the cover across one end. A fretful child can often be amused for a long time if mother or nurses reserves for this restless time a play apron covered with pictures or odd figures. An easy model for' such an apron is to gather straight folds of red muslin to a band that buttons around the child"chest just under the arms. This is held in place by straps over the shoulder. Oh each side of the front are set-on pockets. Cut pictures from linen books, or draw figures of animals on different colored muslins. These may lie either applique:! to the apron in borders and panels, or they can be pasted with a Hour paste so that they can be washed off when the apron is soiled and a new supply put on. ■; .A pretty tie that can easily be made at home from scraps of material is a box-pleated tie of .handkerchief linen or fine lawn trimmed with colored lace. The linen is out about six inches long, and two inches from the bottom it has two rows of hem-stitching run across it.. The edges are rolled, and finished on sides and across bottom with a half-inch insertion of colored Valenciennes lace. The tie is made up with a central box pleat and three-side pleats on either .side. The top is finished with a narrow band of lawn, which may have a button-hole worked in the middle of it to slip over the. collar button. , A NOTED LADY SCIENTIST. Mme. Curie, whose researches in .the science of radio-activity have led to the discovery of the new radio-active element polonium, lives a hermit's life, and seldom leaves her laboratory. When I called at her residence in the Rue Cuvier (states a correspondent) she sent a message saying that the many hours 01 close study and work through the night in connection with her discovery had so tlisturlted her health that she could see no one. Professor Lippmann, the famous chemist, who presented her discovery to the Academy of Science, was, however, able to impart some interesting information concerning the discovery, "First of all," he said, "it's interest is especially theoretical. You know that many tons of pitchblende had to be treated to obtain this infinitesimal piece of polonium, but it has not yet been made clear that the polonium is isolated. Mme. Curie has been able to obtain from pitchblende several tenths of a milligramme of polonium, which is now under observation. You ask me to describe polonium, but I cannot, for, as I have Said, it is not yet isolated, but here is a curious phenomenon in.connection with it. The little frag ment of metal is at present enclosed in! a capsule of quartz and this is kept in a ( liquid. Well, this liquid bubbles and. sizzles. This phenomenon is probably of, .electric origin. Tlte polonium gives off a strong smell of ozone, and bubbles of various other gases continually arise from the liquid in which it is kept. A capital point in connection with polonium is the rapidity of its transmutation. It will, therefore, be possible at an early date to examine the constituent elements of this mysterious body, where as this will only be possible with radium —which is less radio-active—at the end of 1000 or 1500 years." HOUSEHOLD RECIPES. Apricot Pudding.—Break six eggs into a basin, and when they have been well beaten add a pint of milk, a pinch of salt, four tablespoonfuls of flour, and a little pounded cinnamon. Whisk well together. Take some preserved apricots, rub them through a sieve, and add a sufficient quantity of the pulp to make the whole rather thicker than batter. Sweeten and put into a buttered teasln, and boil for an hour and a-quarter. Servo with melted butter.

Chicken Cream (for invalids).—Mince finely three ounces of raw chicken, pass it twice through the machine. Then beat on to it one egg and two tableepoonfuls of cream. Season daintily with salt and white pepper and a few grains of nutmeg. Butter a jam pot, pour in the contents, cover with greased paper, and steam for thirty-five minutes. Turn out on a dish, garnish with crumbled yolk of egg and chopped parsley, and pour a little thick white sauce over. Flavored Creams.—Required: One pint of cream, -three level tablespoonfuls of castor sugar, vanilla or any other flavoring to taste, wafers, cochineal. Whip the cream until it will only just hang on the whisk, then very lightly stir into it the sugar and flavoring. Put half the cream into another basin, and color it a delicate pink with a few drops of cochineal. Heap the two colored creams up roughly, blending the colors prettily either in little ice-tubes on small glass plates, or in custard glasses, and serve them with wafers. N.B.—lf liked, a macaroon slightly soaked with sherry. or a. small spoonful of fresh fruit may be 'placed' in each small plate, and the cream heaped on it. Stuffed Rolls—Required: One dozen finger-shaped rolls, quarter of a pound of cooked veal, two ounces of cooked ham. an ounce of butter, half an ounce of flour, one gill of milk, one tablespoonful of

chopped cress, salt and pepper. Chop the real and hain very finely, Melt the I/utter ill a saucepan, stir m ilie Hour smoothly, then add the milk; sstil it over the fire until it boils and thickens; then add the veal, ham and coarsely-chopped cress, a little mustard, salt and pepper. Mix all well together; leave the mixture until cold. Split the rolls in halves lengthways; spread a good layer of the mixture on one half, lay the oilier half ooi the top and form a '.sandwich. Press the halves well together, and arrange the rolls on a laee paper on a dish, (iarnish with'a little fresh parsley. Egg Fritters.—Required: Three hardboiled eggs, two sardines, one egg. bread crumbs, salt, pepper, and vinegar, fat for frying. Boil the eggs for at least liftecn minutes. Then shell them, and put thorn in cold water for a few minutes. Next cut them in halves lengthways, and take out the yolks carefully, so as not to break the cups of white. Skin and bone the sardines, mash them with a fork, and mix them with the yolks of the eggs. Season the mixture to taste with pepper, salt and vinegar, and, if liked, rub it through a sieve; but this is not really necessary. Refill the whites of the eggs with this mixture. Smooth it evenly over the top, then brush all over with ■beaten egg, and cover with crumbs. Have ready ft pan of frying fat, and when a bluish smoke rises from it put in the eggs and fry them a golden brown. Drain them well on kitchen paper, and serve them on a lace paper garnished with fried parsley and slices of lemon. Fish Patties.—Required: About half a pound of pastry, six ounces of any cooked fish, about four tablespoonfuls of fish sauce, salt and pepper, browned crumbs, parsley. Roll the pastry about an eighth of an inch thick and line some patty pans with it. Trim and crimp the edges neatly. Put a piece of paper filled with rice or split peas in each tin to prevent the pastry rising up in the centre. Bake them for about fifteen minutes, or until they arc nicely browned. Then take out the rice or peas. Remove all skin and bone from the fish and break it into large Hakes. Put the fish sauce (any kind you happen to have will do) into a small saucepan and heat it; add enough of it to the fish to well moisten it and season it carefully. Put the mixture into the pastry cases; sprinkle a good layer of browned crumbs over the lop. Put them back in the uvea :'or a iVw minutes to make sure the lish mixtur is hot through, and garnish each with a email sprig of parsley and serve. English Chutney.—Chop finely nine large applet;, four or five good-sized Spanish onions, and six ounces of sultanas, and put into a .stewpan with six ounces of ground ginger, five ounces of salt, one and a-quarter pints of vinegar, nine chillies, three-quarters of a pound of brown sugar. Mix ;well and boil gently for about three-quarters of an hour, or until all is quite soft and pulpy. Pour into small, wide bottles or jars and cover securely when cold. This may be used in a week if required, but it will keep well.

< Fish in Milk—Required: Fish (llounder or any white fish), butter, a little flour, salt' and pepper, milk. Putter a piedish, place in the flounder (skinned) or any white fish, cover witb milk, and take 'in a slow oven till the flesh will leave the bones. Place the fish on a hot dish; thicken the milk with a little flour; cook it thoroughly, add salt and pepper, pour over the fish, and' serve. Savoury Macaroni.—Required: Quarter of a pound of cooked ham or tongue, ona ounce of butter, half a pint of tomato sauce, brown breadcrumbs, salt and pepper. Boil the macaroni till tender in water, with salt; drain, and cut into inch lengths. Melt the butter in a •tewpan, add the ham or tongue cut in shreds, pour in the tomato sauce, ami put in the macaroni. Season well. Put the mixture in a buttered fireproof dish, sprinkle over a few brown breadcrumbs, bake for ten minutes in a hot oven, and serve.

Pineapple Cake. Required: Eight ounces of flour, six ounces of butter, six ounces of sugar, three eggs, one teaspoonful of baking powder, one teaspoonfnl of pineapple essence, pineapple filing. foudant icing. Cream the butter and sugar together, add the eggs and sifted flour alternately, beating thoroughly; add the baking' powder and pineapple essence; pour the mixture into two shallow cake tins lined with buttered paper and bake in a moderate, oven for half to three-quarters of an hour. When cold and firm place them together with pineapple filling between, ice with foudant icing, and decorate with a few pieces of glace pineapple.