WHAT WE WOMEN THINK

Radio Record, Volume IV, Issue 39, 10 April 1931, Page 32

WHAT WE WOMEN THINK

COORDING .to that notable novel‘ist, avowed feminist, and frank critic of the times,..Mrs. Virginia Woolf, women are fast-approaching the time when they may use their gifts, unimpeded by prejudice, lack of money, family duties and frail femin‘ine reputation. All that is needed is talent, a settled income and a room of their own, and any day they may blossom upon the world as famous novelists, critics, even poets. "Give us a chawnece, gov’ner!" is apparently all we need to ask. Mrs. Woolf holds the opinion that "good. writers,. even if they show every variety of human depravity, are still good human beings. They live in the presence of reality." So whatever your failings, my gifted sisters, apparently there’s regeneration in the pen of a ready writer, plus the aforementioned amenities of existence. -Undine.

THE great clothes question rages In heat, in cold, in bad times. and good times and all times ~whatsoever. And assuredly now is the time to be up and doing with a heart for any frock chat may come in useful at the right moment. There are dance gowns, satin suits, hats that are chic, lingerie that allures, all to be had, if not-for the asking, at incredibly low figures. Let the sports girl bestir herself, the "little. pal" stride, the poseuse drift to. the counters and "The Mantles," and, at surprisingly, low cost, deck themselves for the best beloved. But yesterday I saw with a longing eye black lace and georgette dinner frock, built on. artfully seductive lines, going but not yet. gone for a song. Also a frock of duck-egg green satin, fastened.down its slender length with crystal buttons, and ready to billow out around the little feet that, like mice, will steal in and out of its folds. This, be it said, for a pound. Alack, why are crusts offered to the toothless, and sartorial glories dangled before us when we are-on the. stark rocks of impecuniosity ?-Alannah. * *:

A OLOTHHES line for the kitchenette that can be neatly tucked away out of sight when not-in use is a necessity to dwellers in flat-dom and a great convenience to: the more. fortunate possessor of a back-yard. I have just seen one which is bound to make its appeal to the neat and tidy mind. Ii, consists of a round, flat metal box which is enamelled to match the woodwork of the kitchenette, and firmly écrewed to a convenient part. It contains the cord snugly wound up inside and works upon the same principle as the small box tape measure, having ~---_- -_-----_

a handle at one side and the cord emerging from the other. Two hooks are screwed in to the walls and the cord is then stretched from the box to the hooks and back again. The hooks, of course, should be screwed into oppos-* ite walls to form a triangular area on which to hang the clothes, s s @ ISS CAROLINE HASLETT, secretary of the Women’s DWngineering Society and director of the Dlectrical Association for Women, and one of the new O.B.E.’s in the Honours List, found herself in engineering. She says she was a failure at all the ordinary women’s jobs, and it was by accident that she discovered where her talent lay. She was given a job during the war as secretary in a boiler company, and she soon asked if she might go into the works. In December, 1919, she became secretary of the first Women’s Hngineering Society, and devoted herself thereafter to helping girls who‘were born engineers to follow their bent. * * Bs

HEN is a hall nota hall? According to modern estate agents, it is a hall if it is a narrow passage, If it is large enough to contain a chair and an aspidistra, it is a lounge, It is a pity that a word which suggests comfort and restfulness should be misused. A real lounge is certainly not a small and draughty hall. It should be a cosy, quiet place with some _ soft chairs, and perhaps a chesterfield and a. few books. It need not be large; in fact, a little lounge may be the perfect snuggery. It does not need expensive furniture, and certainly not a large table, because no meals will ever be served in it, except possibly tea, and all that it necessary for that is a low occasional table which will support a. tray. It should, I think, have an electric stove or gas fire, because it will often be used at odd times. Hven if the house is centrally heated, a glowing stove adds to the cosy effect of the lounge. Gas stoves, properly fitted so that all fumes pass up a chimney, are perfectly healthful.

EHPING at some of the advance fashions, I have discovered tunic frocks for the afternoon. ‘These tunics are to the knees, and of coloured or patterned materials. Most of them maintain a straight line, but a few show flares at the hems, and they all go over black slips. That would seem to. be the general style, and it is not difficult for the discerning needlewoman to appreciate how easily she may renovate a last year’s frock to conform to the new mode. She needs merely an underslip, and the neck-line of her frock simplified if necessary. Then, a triangle of the black materia) introduced on the bodice or as mockcuffs -completes the renovation. .

Js the vogue of Maeterlinck gone for good? Time was when "Wisdom and: Destiny" and "The Bee Book" were perused devoutly and acclaimed as "The Treasure of the Humble" and the highbrow alike. Nowadays even those curiously haunting plays of the Belgian mystic are flung into limbo by. the general public. His family and friends, however, do not abate en- _

thusiasm, and Melisande and Magdalene still subtly stir emotions in the little theatre which the dramatist has added to his new home, the Palais d’Orlamonde, at Nice. The roof of this theatre, like that of the green drawing-room, in this lovely abode, is a blossoming garden, The house backs on to a steep cliff, each arched window overlooking the sea. A long marble gallery runs to the house, its pillars wreathed in roses-and illumined by hidden electric lights; while in the dwelling itself the marble hall is sheathed in verre antique and coloured marbles, The second floor of this house of dreams is panelled with golden onyx, bedrooms and salon decorated and furnished to represent rooms in old Italian paintings. * * A GOOD tae for photographs is to keep them in a porifolio, and I would suggest a little treasure room at. the top of the house for all the pictures and oddments we feel we cannot possibly part with. One jar of flowers placed in a good light can compensate for all the pictures and knick- | knacks in the treasure room. Or one | flower picture over the mantelpiece, This is the ozly decoration permitted | in the really modern room, ‘This one picture is enhanced tenfold by the bare ° walls, for it is not in competition with | other things which distract the eye. The bare walls train tho eye to form |

t and symmetry. Bare walls give peace and serenity, which is another reason for their vogue and cultivation in the present era of noise, s " s 'THERD is much speculation as to the identity of "A Daughter of Hive," author of a piquant little volume, "A. Woman's Utopia," which ig something new in the flight of the imagination, says a correspondent in a woman’s paper. The anonymous author presents some diverting ideas, food control and compulsory slimming coming in for quite a lot of attention. It is also remarked that in a woman’s Utopia women will be serious workers, and always look dignified and right; uniforms will be general, but away from office or shop will be at once discarded and butterfly emerge from chrysalis. Which, after all, is not so remoyed from the ideas prevailing’ in our own land of the free, which in moments of gloom appears to us to be anything but a Utopia. ° *. bd : * OLITICS for the nonce are the thrill in Mayfair. They are one of the newest ways of raising funds which appeal committees have devised for 1931, A series of three lectures. on "Parliament and How it. Works," is. proving a popular way at the moment of killing time, or helping on. the good work, just as you-like to phrase it. Women members of Parliament are in demand for these occasions, Miss Pllen Wilkinson being regarded as a "draw" among political lionesses. ‘ Fy « F LORD BHACONSFIELD was cer-/ tainly a master of the fine phrasé, and it is doubtful, addressed in the following fashion, whether any woman would fail to be flattered, even though it were the austere Queen-Empress to whom the graceful effusion was addressed. On a former fourteenth of February, an amatory anniversary now being revived in Dngland, he thus addressed Victoria the Good: "O to repese on a sunny bank, like young Valentine in the picture that fell from a rosy cloud this morning; but the reverie of that happy. youth must be rather different from mine. Valentine dreams of the future and youthful love, under inspiration of a beautiful clime. Lord Beaconsfield, no longer in the sunset but the twilight of existence, must encounter a life of anxiety and toil: but this, too, has its romance when ly remembers that he labours for most gracious of beings. * * x AST year we were all very much perturbed about our waistline, ‘highly’ being the appropriate adjective. This year the ultra-high waistline is being definitely lowered to just above the top of the hip-bone. Parisionnes say that they find this place most generally becoming. As a conSequence we find a géneral falling off in the tuck-in blouse that has: proved so unbecoming to many figures. A short over-blouse, belted at the natural waist place, if it suits the wearer’s figure, or slightly below it, takes the piace, , Ne jot ac ex~ cept, perhaps, regard to the sev. ere Sometimes the * lem is solved by tucking in the back and putting a bit of the blouse material below. the belt and over the top of the skirt in front only. Tunic blouses are being made to drape back and tie at the back of the waistline an 1880 inspiration,