Rummaging into a wealth of manuscripts left by my late husband, Wilfrido, while I was searching the typescript of a novel of his that a publisher heard about and is interested in, I found this news clipping of antiquity, yellowing with age. but bringing back memories that brought me to tears. Interviewed in 1961 (barely three years after our wedding), together with some other national figures, here was his spontaneous reply as published in the Philippines Herald in its November 10, 1961 issue. We both didn't even see it then, but my brother did and clipped it, complete with the page number.
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WHAT MAKES A WOMAN BEAUTIFUL
by Wilfrido D. Nolledo
short story writer, playwright
A woman is made beautiful by character. To me, character is everything.
It is a grace, a charity, a quietness. It is all the poetry we have ever written: all the history we will survive. Character is fate---man's mate.
When she behaves like a family, even before she is a mother; when she giggles like a girl but weeps as a woman, The Woman to The Man is all a piece. As in a haiku poem, a pebble cast into a stream creates a ripple, and breaks the stillness. But soon, the water settles and the stream is serene once more. Sometimes, a woman is like that. There is a ripple now and then. But the pebble vanishes; she remains. She is always there. I think that is beautiful indeed, and ... (sorry the rest got cut off by the brittleness of the fold).
