WOMAN'S WORLD

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LV, Issue 200, 13 January 1913, Page 6

WOMAN'S WORLD

(Conducted hy "Eileen"). HER AIX FIRESIDE. QI'EEN VICTORIA'S HAPPY HOME LIFE. Am inti■!■( sting book just publislicd is ;ii" ''Correspondence of Sarah Spencer Ladv Lyttcllon. 1787-1570," whicli has been edited by the Hon. .Mrs Hugh Wyndhnm. Lady Lyttdton. liie daughter of the second Earl Spewer. became Lady'-in-Waiting io Queen \'icloria in IN3B. and four years later was appointed governess to the Royal children, by whom she was affectionately known as "Laddie." • In one of her letters we see (he Queen as a young woman who was particular about the pronunciation of words (which differed in many respects from our pronunciation of to-day) and anxious to be regarded as an authority on such matters. Writing from Buckingham Palace in February. IS3O, Lady Lvttelion savs:

The Queen says gold open not goold, alijo Rome open not Room. Also Prussia in my way (she was accustomed in childhood to the other way) rhyming to Russia, in spile of the Dean of Chester. She is particularly pleased at being reckoned an authority about accent, and takes great pains about it.

TABLE .MANNERS. We find Lady Lytfelton commenting on the rather elevated tone which the Prince Consort introduced at the dinner tabic. We have, I begin to notice, rather a rawed tone of conversation of late — many bits of information and naval matters and scientific subjects come up and are talked of very pleasantly at dinner. The Princ?. of course, encourages such subjects, and 110 gosisip has been stirring since we have been here, but many things have been said daily which I have been sorry to forget. The Prince and Queen .are reading llallanfs "Constitutional History of England" together most carefully, and for a light book "St. Simon's Memoirs." Very pleasant to find him reading aloud to her while she was at cross-stitch, as I did the other evening before dressing time. Oh. what a blessing it is that "love rules the Court" as he does. PLUCK OF BABY PRINCE. In 184-4 we see the Prince of Wales hard put to it to keep up his courage during the firing at a review. I was deeply interested in princey, who sat on my lap in ecstacies till the firing, when he behaved most prettily. It was quite near. "I afraid! Soldiers go popping! No more! 1 cry!" With the most touching countenance and bursting heart but he conquered himself completely, did 'i;>t cry a drop, and grew quite calm betore it ceased—a real bit of courage on principle. Prince Albert cuts an odd figure as he ' tries to keep himself warm one winter day in Windsor Castle.

We have been struggling through the coldest day in this winter; bo far everybody has come in with red nose and tingling fingers. Such a hurricane of north-east winds, such dark clouds, absent sun and hard obduracy of black frost I never saw. I said to the Prince "Mill your Royal Highness consent to look over the quarterly accounts which I have just brought down?" 11.K.1i."Yes, certainly,'if you will consent to my doing reel slops all the time to warm myself." (H.R.H. , ViU lU? tivolv so doiii" as he spoke.) S.L.-"By all means, sir" provided your Royal Highness does not insist on my joining." So we were -oortiye. ' ' ' l

ECCENTRIC DUKE OF CAMBRIDGE. Very amusing again is the account of the eccentric habits of the Duke of Cambridge in iiis later days, as we see in a letter from Osborne in 1850.

I am again going to dine down, to help work off the old Duke of Cambridge who is said to Be somewhat troublesome by asking in iiis good father's tone such questions as, '"How do you get on here? Kalher dull, hey?" within two chairs of the Queen at a small table. The Duke of Cambridge saw Chats worth the other day on his knees in the middle of the family prayers, and remarked very loud before the assembled household: A <H —d good custom this!" Lady Lyttclton is full of praise for the Queen as "a womanly woman" as may be seen by an acomit of another coid evening. The Queen was cold (as indeed had long been all her Majesty's oving subjects and servants then with her) the other evening, the drawing room having but one of its fires burning and few people in it. She said: "I am sad.y cold. I should like the other fire lighted." Then low to me. "Tell Lord Joltimore to go and ask the Prince if he would like the other fire lighted " Of course the Prince did like if, hut the lung though small, struck me as a prct u hit of wifeism.

GIRLS WHO EXAGGERATE It requires a nice discrimination to make distinction between the one who exaggerates and the liar. o<:at would '"-' the indignation of most gins if net considered truthful, yet their habit of embroidering the truth makes it a queer tabric. One exaggerates from various motives. Sometimes it is due to a vivid imagination. The girl hears .somethmand before long h as lot her iniaginatmii nil' not until she actually believes her story._ Again, a girl exaggerates from a desire to be interesting/" She want, to create a sensation, and if the truth cannot do it she adds to it. A too keen sense of humor often leads to exaggeration. A girl sees the fuunv side of the story, and to make others see it she saenhces the strict facts. Heedless exaggeration is common. A girl from talking superlatives thinks them. She will teb you sl„; has seen a hundred people when she means perhaps a dozen; that a friend's new diamond is as big as a hen's egg; that someone else was°"in a frightful rage" when perhaps she was slightly peevish. Xo harm in all this for the speaker is not taken seriously! but it weakens other things she say's! and makes her conversation without torce. Occasionally a girl exaggerates maliciously, which brings her into the class of the "'dar at heart." The instant a story is wilfully enlarged it becomes quite inexcusable.

THE WOMAN OF FIFTY ' ou ask me why women of over fifty nowadays .tr<! almost invariably more interesting, attractive and popular tlian girls in the twenties? '[ am inclined to tlnnk that the main reason for this lies in a remark which I made when we were chatting a few minutes ago—namely, that there are two kinds of women—the experimenting and the experienced. The girl of twenty, unless she i.s intellectnal'iy xery exceptional, is invariably experimenting. She experiments in 'her dress, her conversation, and her hobbies, simply and solely because, as a general rule, she is not quite sure what she likes best or what is best suited to her. In fine, she is not sure of 'her public, and uncertainty causes her very largely to miss, 'all publics.' On the' other band, the woman of over fifty, or. indeed, the woman of over forty, lias usually learnt life's Wesson. She has formed her own ideas on most subjects, she has learnt the particular groove in life in which F.ile and circumstances have cast (her, and, better still, she has probably also' learnt to feel real, genuine sympathy for others. There is much to be said in '

favor of the kindly, sensible, sympathetic woman of over fifty. And that she is generally found attractive is, I think, conclusive' proof that experience of mind i s a more valuable aid to popularity, than attractiveness of face, form and feature.—Sarah Bernhardt, in I'ear--si;!i's Magazine.