THE LADIES’ WORLD.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXVIII, Issue 2759, 14 March 1910, Page 3

THE LADIES’ WORLD.

■SCIENCE OF COMFORT. Even a wise man, says the Latin poet, is grumpy when his cold is 'troublesome. It is in the nature of a sum-ming-up of all the ways of mankind. Your wise man will bear with equanimity and even a cheerful and genial manner disasters that strike at his most impo. cant interests and his deepest- affections, hut give him a cold in the head and all the neighbourhood resounds with his complaints. You. approach him at your peril, and if you want him to do anything, you might a.s well apply to an inmate- of the /mo. No man, we know, is as wise as a woman, much less as good tempered; but take a woman when slue has some small, and particularly some undignified, ailment, and you will find her a thousand times more uncertain and hard to please than if she were in agonies of body and soul. What is true of the small physical discomforts is true of all the minor woes of life. It is 'not our tragedies that make us unhappy, hut our burnt toast and our late trains. The very people who surprise you and excite vour admiration by the way they endure great troubles are neither to hold nor to bind if a servant is slow to answer the bell, or a foolish person is impertinent, or a friend forgets to answer a letter. If vml boast yourself superior to ail these minor woes, if you can declare that you never lost your temper over a matter of no importance, you arc justly entitled to all praise whatsoever which rightly belongs to the inhuman. Of course, the proper virtuous tiling is to expound at length how naughty and degrading it is to lot your angry passions rise at trifles. As a small concession to honesty, one may then admit regret that one’s little practice falls a little short of perfection. Finally, a short, emotional exhortation on the beauty of being always sweetly amiable should be pronounced. In this short and immoral essay you will find nothing of the kind. COUNSEL OF PERFECTION. There are people who never show annoyance at anything. This may be the result of an extraordinary power of self-control. And, no doubt, they arc extraordinarily happju But- to tell the great majority who have no more than human strength and no less than human weakness to behave like these paragons is useless and ridiculous. No amount of preaching will stop the normal man from feeling cross when his office boy or tradesman or his digestion plays him false. No amount of argument will persuade the normal healtny woman into content with a rude servant or a scandalous friend. Perhaps, though this is heresy of the grossest kind, we ought not to desire that in such provocation the man should be amiable and the woman contented. li : we none of us bore any resentment for the minor woes of life the world would not, as the sentimentalists sa.v, be :i

dear, sweet pla-ce to live in. it would he horribly uncomfortable, like a house in which master and mistress will tolerate any sort of neglect from their servants and any sort of disorder from their children.

The organisation of this world is based on the principle tha-fc we all keep each other up to tho mark. If it ever became the fashion to endure everything without resentment, we should, most of us, become deplorably and disastrously slack. We might, perhaps, perform our more important; duties, for if they were left undone the whole structure of society, the whole intricate fabric of human relations would cease to exist, and we should be.back in (he darkest ages of savagery. But all the minor obligations would be neglected. All the small courtesies of life would disappear. We should soon find ourselves transformed into a race of lazy boors. It seems, therefore, that tho old sarcastic advice, "endure all tilings amiably, even to kicking,” the counsel of perfection which bids us never let our angry tempers rise, is not in this imperfect world to be taken too serious-' 13 ' RAGE RIDICULOUS. We need not, however, leap to the conclusion that loss of temper over all our minor-woes is just and reasonable, and-the mark of the ’strong, capable mind. Very frequently it is a sign of weakness. More frequently still, it invites ridicule. From what fate would you pray more fervently to he preserved? One of the authentic stones of Napoleon relates that lie was once, as he rode, much annoyed by a small dog’s barking and yelping. At sue!) blatant lose-majeste he lost his temper in the finest Napoleonic style, and after vain objurgations he drew a pist-ol and fired at tho dog. And he missed. Even a Napoleon cannot carry off such a situation with dignity. Tlie safe and reasonable method with the minor woes, the true science of comfort, lies between these two extremes of meek toleration and extravagant wrath. What we most of us lack is a sense of proportion. A servant, generally most efficient, is violently abused because of one small negligence. Or our health, generally most satisfactory, is mourned,and condemned as utterly miserable, because we have a small chill. We exaggerate offences and failures to: our own injury. The science of comfort ordains that we should consider bad temper not as a delightful luxury, hut as a very expensive and rare necessity. If we could only contrive to remember that- our rages make more discomfort for ourselves than anyone else, we should indulge in them more sparingly over the minor woes.