Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1901-05-23
TRICKS AND APPLICATIONS THAT
BECOME HABITS.
THE RISING INFLUENCE
A Popular Form of Conversational
Idiocy Calculated to Produce Nerv-
Gus Prostration in Listeners-Head
on One Side With Eyes Upward
Another Absurdity.

Norham, who is the apostle Of reform
and by ill-natured people supposed to
be the caricature of Mrs. Humphry
Ward, has a 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
day it happened that she met the pre-
mier, Lord Runcorn, and his sister by
hazard in a railway carnage. 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
|
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 fl ON Mrs. Bouse-
| oil nh hn
sense of the menage:
Mrs. Norham, l 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 I can give We cold com
press"
Most Of us who have manuerisms
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
a credulous public that a misfortune
is q gift, just as an eccentricity is a
mark of genius. Your correspondent
knows a 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 a trembling of the lids.
In her Utmost 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 a Well-eStabuisled,
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 a spouse. He is not a
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 I, for one, will not af-
firm that to be obliged to be affected
before a member of ones family is not
a 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 bachelcrhood this column con-
| fesses to pang of pity.
| Better a 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 a 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 well
and early because they had a hesita-
| ton in their speech. She even knew a
lady who secured a comfortable settle
| ment by habit Of fainting and being
borne out Of bathrooms on stalwart
shoulders. There is q family who
open and shut their eyes after the
iAAIiiA1Oi VI "dA uCllo, olIu Win ouSh Cl-
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 putting on
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 ar af- |
fectation
1t Makes People Tired.