Northern Wisconsin advertiser. [volume] (Wabeno, Wis.) 1898-1925, 1901-05-23
AS TO MANNERISMS|
TRICKS AND APPLICATIONS THAT
BECOME HABITS.
THE :RlsINo INFLUENCE
A Popular Form of Conversational
Idiocy Calculated to Produce Nerv-
Gus Prostitution in Listeners-Head
on One Side With Eyes Upward
Another Absurdity.

In that very clever study OF char
acter, Tristram Lacy, by MalloclS, Mrs.
Norman, who is the apostle of reform
and by ill-natured people supposed to
be the caricature of Mrs. Humphrey
Ward, has trick of holding her head
on one side and looking upward. This
mannerism had met with no consider
alton at home or in the intellectual
ranks in which she moved, but upon a
day it happened that she met the pre-
mier, Lord Runcorn, and his sister by
hazard in railway carriage. Lady
Cornelia Legion, who was of another
world, was quite fascinated with the
unusual posture, and when they parted
the Delphic Pythoness heard her re-
mark to her illustrious brother:
Il like that trick she has of looking
upwards with her head little on one
side. One sees something like it in
pictures of old saints"
That night, when the apostle of re-
form had returned to her own humble
surroundings, where she had gathered
little flock about her in the en-
deavor to teach them something of the
higher life, she bore her head not like
a medieval saint, but ike a broken
lily, so easy is it to exaggerate a vir-
tue, as can be seen in people who
color their faces to perfection the
| first month, but are like a signboard
the second. And the upward glance
and the distorted neck, instead of
evoking commentator called forth
the following remark from Mrs. Bouse-
| field, who represented the common
sense of the menage:
Mrs Norham, hope we've not suf-
fered from sitting in those foreign rail
way carriages. I've noticed We hold
your head little on one side. If your
neck is stiff can give We a cold COM
press"
| Most OF us who have mannerisms
have acquired them in pretty much the
same way. At first they are accidents
and afterwards they become habits. 1t
is singular how easy it is to convince
credulous public that a misfortune
| is a gift, just as an eccentricity is a
mark of genius. Your correspondent
knows lady who was asked in mar
riage by several gentlemen (for where
| one pastures others will follow, al
though she was neither beautiful nor
clever, nor rich. but because she was
affected with trembling of the lids.
In her inmost heart she who addresses
you believes the trembling began with
nervousness, but it was unusual, and
| after little what was curious began
to be regarded as fascinating. At
any rate ] know well-esta buisled
portly lady, married to a man who Sc
! cured her, not without difficulty,
whose only sorrow is the necessity of
keeping up the girlish habit which
! procured her spouse. He is not
| sentimentalist, but he wants what he
paid for. He married her because her
eyelids trembled, and not unnaturally
he wishes to be possessed of the same
treasure. The nervousness which oc-
casioned my poor friends popularity
| having passed she can look as straight
as you or l, but her punishment is to
continue to have trembling lids. At
least in the presence of her lord she
must assume the trick by which she
won him, and l, for one, will not af-
| firm that to be obliged to be affected
| before member of ones family is not
trial. And when the partner of her
| joys looks for this inherited trait in
each daughter and wonders why Made
| line or James has not the pretty habit
with which their mother cajoled him
out of bachelorhood this column con-
fesses to a parg of pity.
Better third-story back In a board
ing-house, with a tabby cat for COM
pany, than marriage with a man who
requires one to keep up girlish antic
when the time for antics has passed
and when the antic is not native
popularity, but mannerism. All
legitimate means to attract should
not be used. Your correspondent
knows three sisters who married we'll
and early because they had hesita-
ton in their speech. She even knew a
lady who secured comfortable settle
ment by habit of fainting and being
borne out of bathrooms on stalwart
shoulders. There is family who
open and shut their eyes after the
manner of wax dolls, and with such ef-
feet that they are to the male what
the basilisk is to the frog. Only let it
be understood, that these mannerisms
are for the nonce, and the object once
attained, they may be discarded as the
saurian reptile sheds his skin. All is
fair in love, as in war. and one may
stutter or blink or swoon away just
as one learns the trick of pltting on a
grenadier's cap, but the prey secured,
one should be allowed to don ones
dressing gown and slippers, so to
speak, and not be made to affect an af-
fectation.
II Makes People Tired.
But there lisa mannerism with which
one has little patience. And 1t must be
confessed that it obtains south OF
Mason and Dixons line. Nor can the