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A Guide to Men; Being Encore Reflections of a Bachelor Girl |
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Title: A Guide to Men; Being Encore Reflections of a Bachelor Girl Author: Helen Rowland [More Titles by Rowland] THE MATERIAL FOR
Who has discovered the secret of how to be happy, though wedded to an art and to a man at the same time. FOREWORD A SMALL phial, I doubt not, could contain the attar of the epigrammatic literature of all time. Few of the perfumes of this diminutive form of wit and satire have survived. Pretty and scented vaporings, most of the thousands and thousands of them, that have died on the air of the foibles of their day. Yet how the pungent ones can persist! The racy old odors, which are as new as now, that still hover about the political and amorous quips of the Greeks. The nose-crinkling ones of the French, more vinegar-acrid than perfumed, although a seventeenth-century proverb calls France "a monarchy tempered by epigrams." The didactic Teutonic ones, sharply corrosive. The greatest evaporative of course of this form of bon mot is mere cleverness. Wit is the attar which endures. The wit of Pope and Catullus, Landor, Voltaire, Rousseau and Wilde. That is what Rapin must have had in mind when he said that a man ought to be content if he succeeded in writing one really good epigram. Helen Rowland stands pleasantly impeached for writing many. She has a whizz to her swiftly cynical arrow that entitles her to a place in the tournament. She is not merely anagrammatical, scorns the couplet for the mere sake of the couplet, and has little time for the smiting word at any price. In the entire history of epigrammatic expression there are few if any whose fame rests solely upon the brittle structure of the bon mot. Martial, about whose brilliant brevities can scarcely be said to hover the odor of sanctity, is, I suppose, remembered solely as a wielder of the barbed word. Miss Rowland is balanced skilfully upon that same slender trapeze, doing a very deft bow-and-arrow act, her archery of a high order. She wields a wicked bow, a kindly bow, a swift, a sure, a ductile bow. Matrimony is her favorite target (so was it Bombo's and Herrick's and even political Parnell had his shot at it) and her little winged arrows are often bitingly pointed with philosophy, satire, wit and sometimes just a touch of good old home-brew American hokum. For this wise woman with the high-spirited bow behind her arrow, these little pages speak eloquently. FANNIE HURST.
OVERTURE
THE sweetest part of a kiss is the moment just before taking. Love is misery--sweetened with imagination, salted with tears, spiced with doubt, flavored with novelty, and swallowed with your eyes shut. Marriage is the miracle that transforms a kiss from a pleasure into a duty, and a lie from a luxury into a necessity. A husband is what is left of a lover, after the nerve has been extracted. A man's heart is like a barber shop in which the cry is always, "NEXT!" The discovery of rice-powder on his coat-lapel makes a college-boy swagger, a bachelor blush, and a married man tremble. It takes one woman twenty years to make a man of her son--and another woman twenty minutes to make a fool of him. By the time a man has discovered that he is in love with a woman, she is usually so fagged out waiting for the phenomenon, that she is ready to topple right over into his arms from sheer exhaustion. A man always asks for "just one kiss"--because he knows that, if he can get that, the rest will come without asking. Somehow, the moment a man has surrendered the key of his heart to a woman, he begins to think about changing the lock. There are only two ages, at which a man faces the altar without a shudder; at twenty when he doesn't know what's happening to him--and at eighty when he doesn't care.
THE REFRAIN
SOMEHOW, JUST AT
BACHELORS
A confirmed bachelor is so sure of his ability to dodge, that he is willing to amuse every pretty girl he meets, by handing her a rope and daring her to catch him. A bachelor is a large body of egotism, completely surrounded by caution and fortified at all points by suspicion. His chief products are wild oats and cynicism; his chief industry is dodging matrimony; his undeviating policy "Protection!" and his watch-word, "Give me liberty or give me death!" The average bachelor is so afraid of falling into matrimony, nowadays, that he sprinkles the path of love with ashes instead of with roses. The care with which a bachelor chaperones himself would inspire even the duenna of a fashionable boarding school with envy. A bachelor's idea of "safety first" consists in getting tangled up with a lot of women in order to avoid getting tied up to one. He is an altruist who refrains from devoting himself to one woman in order that he may scatter sweetness and light amongst the multitude. There is nothing quite so intriguing to a bachelor as flirting with the "idea of marriage"--with his fingers crossed. He just loves to "consider marrying" in the abstract and to go about pitying himself for being so "lonely." There are three kinds of bachelors: the kind that must be driven into matrimony with a whip; the kind that must be coaxed with sugar; and the kind that must be blindfolded and backed into the shafts. If you want to be chosen to brighten a bachelor's life, first make it dark and dreary; so long as women are willing to make his existence one long sweet song, naturally he isn't anxious to exchange it for a lullaby. When a man actually asks a girl to marry him in these days of bachelor comforts and the deification of single-blessedness, she has a revelation of human unselfishness that stands as the eighth wonder of the world. That tired expression on a bachelor's face is not so often the result of brain-fag from an overworked mind as of heart-fag from overworking the emotions. Lovers look at life through rose-colored curtains; old bachelors see it through a fog. Somehow, a bachelor never quite gets over the idea that he is a thing of beauty and a boy forever! A bachelor fancies that it is his wonderful sixty-horse will-power that keeps him from marrying, whereas it is nothing but his little one-horse won't-power. One consolation in marrying a bachelor over forty is that he has fought so long and so hard to escape the hook that there is no more fight left in him. Never give up hope as long as a bachelor declares definitely, "No woman can get me!" Wait until he is so sure of his immunity that he sighs regretfully, "No woman will have me!" The "vicious circle" in a bachelor's opinion, is the platinum one on a woman's third finger. A Bachelor of Arts is one who makes love to a lot of women, and yet has the art to remain a bachelor.
FIRST INTERLUDE
There are lots of "sure cures" for love, but the quickest and surest is--another love. If there were only two women and one man in the world, the man would marry the brunette and then spend the rest of his life peeping over her shoulder and trying to flirt with the blonde. A woman always embalms the corpse of a dead love; a man wisely cremates it, and plants a new love in the ashes. A fool and her money are soon courted. A woman's pity for a man who loves her against her will may be akin to love; but a man's pity for a woman who loves him without his permission is a twin brother to boredom. Marriage is the miracle which affords a woman a chance to gratify her vanity, pacify her family, mortify her rivals, and electrify her friends, all at the same time. Marriage is sweet! Love is what incites the caveman to drag a woman around by the hair and makes the civilized man permit a woman to drag him around by the nose. The heart of a woman is a secret sanctuary where she is constantly burning incense and candles before a succession of idols of clay. Nowadays, a man's faith in women and heaven seems to disappear with his milk-teeth and to reappear again with his false teeth. To most men "repentance" is merely the interval between the headache and the next temptation. Most bachelors regard the "flower of love" as a species of poison ivy. Even Satan could find a woman to call him "Dearie," if he would simply tell her that all he needed was "a beautiful woman's uplifting influence." A man may be guilty of stealing a girl's heart, but he always feels hurt and indignant if she refuses to take it back again after he has finished with it. Woman's love--a mirror in which a man beholds himself glorified, magnified and deified. Always try to be the "guiding star" of a man's life, but never make the mistake of fancying that you are his whole planetary system. A woman must keep her conscience, her complexion and her reputation snow-white. But a man is satisfied if he can just manage to keep his so that they comply with the pure food laws. Art is inspiring, but you can't run your fingers through its hair; a career is absorbing, but you can't tie ribbons on the curls of your brain-children; work is ennobling, but, alas, it hasn't got a shoulder to cry on! When a girl refuses to kiss a man he is never disconcerted; he is merely astonished that she could be so blind to her own feelings. A summer resort is a place where a girl spends half her time in making herself alluring--and the other half in yearning for something to "lure." When a girl marries a man she is sadly aware that all his old sweethearts are wondering how she did it, and that all her old sweethearts are wondering why. Marriage will never be safe until we stop making it an "ideal" and begin trying to make it a square deal. Just before marriage a man's coat lapel acquires that grayish look which comes from the constant contact with face powder, but it's wonderful how soon it brightens up and gets back its natural color after the wedding. Love is like appendicitis; you never know when nor how it is going to strike you--the only difference being that, after one attack of appendicitis, your curiosity is perfectly satisfied. No matter how many men have tried to flirt with her, a girl will step cheerfully up to the altar in the firm belief that she has found the one perfect human being in trousers who will never look at another woman. After marriage, a woman's sight becomes so keen that she can see right through her husband without looking at him, and a man's so dull that he can look right through his wife without seeing her. A man recuperates so much more quickly from his remorse than a woman does from her indignation that by the time she has forgiven him he is tired of being good and ready to sin again. Before marriage, a man will go home and lie awake all night thinking about something you said; after marriage, he'll go to sleep before you finish saying it. A man can never understand how a woman gets so much joy out of leading him all the way to the threshold of love and then sweetly closing the door in his face. Solitaire--the married woman's game. A man's greatest conquest is self-conquest; his greatest possession, self-possession; and his greatest love--Oh, well, you fill in the rest. Why does a man take it for granted that a girl who flirts with him wants him to kiss her--when, nine times out of ten, she only wants him to want to kiss her? Plunging into a hasty marriage in order to escape from a foolish entanglement is like rushing under a trolley car in order to escape from a taxicab. Nowadays a girl's favorite way of committing suicide for love of a man, is to marry him and worry herself to death over him. A good wife is always her husband's "guide, philosopher and friend"; also his guardian, digestion, conscience, time-table and valet. A man never knows how to say goodby; a woman never knows when to say it. A woman's greatest "right" is the right husband. A woman might forgive a man for all his sins; it's that stained-glass attitude with which he decides to "give them up" when he is tired of them that exasperates her so.
TRUE LOVE--HOW TO KNOW IT
True Love can be no deeper than your capacity for friendship, no higher than your ideals, and no broader than the scope of your vision. True Love, in the cave man, is expressed by a desire to beat a woman, and to pull her around by the hair. True Love, in the Broadwayite, is expressed by an insatiable craving to buy things for a woman. True Love, in a husband, is expressed by his willingness to give his wife anything, from the tenderest piece of steak to a divorce, if it will make her happy. True Love, in any man, is the essence of unselfishness; and the most selfish thing in the world. It is the selfishness that transcends selfishness; the vanity that puts egotism in the shade. True Love, in a bachelor, is exemplified by his willingness to marry a woman--against all his instincts, his sense of self-preservation, and his better judgment. True Love, in a born flirt, is evidenced by his inability to think of any other woman, while he is kissing a particular one. True Love, in an author, is demonstrated by his self-restraint, in refusing to make "copy" out of a love affair. True Love, in a college boy, is expressed by his ability to think of somebody besides himself for a whole hour at a time. It is the flash of light, by which one sees clearly that to do for another, give to another, and sacrifice for another, will get one the most happiness out of life. True Love, in the poet, is expressed in soul kisses, and by his inability to do any work for days at a time. We speak of "falling in love," as though it were a pit or an abyss; but True Love is the light on the mountain-top, to which we must eternally climb. True Love is a relic of the Victorian Age. It still exists, here and there, like the buffalo; but in the face of eugenics, feminism, and the growing masculine determination not to marry, it may some day have to take a place beside the Dinosaurus in the Public Museum.
VARIATIONS
Falling in love consists merely in uncorking the imagination and bottling the common-sense. In the medley of love a man's soul sings a sonata, while his heart plays a waltz and his pulse beats to rag-time. Better be a strong man's "rib" than a weak man's "backbone." True love isn't the kind that endures through long years of absence, but the kind that endures through long years of propinquity. A man seldom thinks of marrying when he meets his ideal woman; he waits until he gets the marrying fever and then idealizes the first woman he happens to meet. Love is what tempts a man to tell foolish lies to a woman and a woman to tell the fool truth to a man. It took seven hundred guesses for Solomon to find out what kind of a wife he wanted; and even then he seems to have had his doubts. The only thing more astonishing than the length of time a man's love will subsist on nothing is the celerity with which it is surfeited the moment it has any encouragement to feed on. Even when a man knows that he wants to marry a woman, she has to prove it to him with a diagram before he is really convinced of it. A man is so apt to mistake his love of experiment for love of a woman that half the time he doesn't know which is which. Why is it that a man never thinks he has tasted the cup of joy unless he has splashed it all over himself, as though it were his morning bath? A man is so versatile that he can read his newspaper with one set of brain-cells while he carries on a conversation with his wife with another set. A girl hides her emotions under a veil of modesty, a spinster under a cloak of cynicism, a wife under a mantle of tact, and a widow under a cloud of mystery--and then women wonder why they are "misunderstood." Proposing is a sort of acrobatic feat, in which a man must hang on to his nerve with one hand and to the girl with the other. If he lets go of either, he is lost. In love, as in poker, men play just to play--and then proceed to throw away what has been easily won, without any thought of its value. Thus gamblers so often die in poverty and Lotharios in loneliness. Nowadays, a truly chivalrous girl will "lie like a lady" in order to protect a trusting man's vanity. The woman who fascinates a man is not the one who looks up to him as the sun of her existence, but the one who merely looks down on him as one of the footlights. Don't doubt a man when he says, "I never loved like this before." Each time a man falls in love with so much more ease and facility that he doesn't recognize it as the same old emotion at all. The first time a man lies to his wife he is surprised to discover how easy it is to do it. After that he is surprised to find out how hard it is not to do it. A man always speaks of having "given" his heart to a woman as though he had done something generous and noble; whereas, nine times out of ten, she probably had to wrench it from him. About the only things in connection with his wife for which a man shows any respect after a few years of marriage are her reputation and her toothbrush.
BLONDES
No matter how many brunettes a man may have married from time to time you can always be perfectly sure that there has been a blonde in his life. A woman with dark hair and eyes may make men admire her, but in order to make one of them propose she must blondine her temperament down to the roots. The dusky Cleopatra may have succeeded in making fools of a few men, but it took a dizzy little blonde like Helen of Troy to make a lot of men make fools of themselves. In order to be popular with men, in these days, a brunette must be either brilliant, interesting, rich or beautiful; but a blonde doesn't have to be anything but a blonde. You may fight a brunette, dearie, as woman to woman, but when you fight a blonde you fight a cherished masculine tradition. Why is it that in all the novels and motion picture plays the vampires and adventuresses have dark hair and black eyes, while the innocent, persecuted angels are all blondes--whereas in real life it is always the other way 'round. Generally speaking, there are two kinds of blondes: blondes by birth and blondes by preference. These are subdivided into golden blondes, diamond blondes, strawberry blondes--and undecided blondes; that is, those who have not yet decided on their favorite shade. Sometimes illness turns a woman's hair gray, and sometimes it merely turns it dark at the roots. A little peroxide is a treacherous thing! All this talk about the "yellow peril" is nonsense. There is no more danger in permitting your husband to employ a pretty blonde stenographer than there is in throwing a lighted match into the wastebasket. When love flies out of the window the tame cat and the sympathetic blonde tip-toe in by opposite doors.
CYMBALS AND KETTLE-DRUMS
"Conscience doth make cowards of us all"--but not until we've emptied the bottle, tired of the flirtation and gotten our money's worth out of the game. Marriage--A souvenir of love. Wanted: A wife who can broil a steak with one hand, powder her nose with the other, rock the cradle with her foot and accompany herself on the harp. (Signed) EVERYMAN. When the girls admire him a young man takes it as a matter of course; but when a widow selects him for her attention he thrills with the knowledge that he is being stamped with the approval of a connoisseur. Before marriage, a man declares that he would lay down his life to serve you; after marriage, he won't even lay down his newspaper to talk to you. If Achilles' only vulnerable spot was in his heel, then his vanity must have gone to his feet, instead of to his head. You can't expect a woman to accomplish much in this life, since she is busy every minute of it either trying to get some man, trying to get along with one, or trying to get rid of one. A man's wife is something like his teeth: He never thinks of her unless she happens to bother him. Life is a tale that is "told": the monk tells his beads, the seer tells fortunes, the lover tells lies--and a woman tells everything. To collect books is a sign of culture, to collect jewels a sign of wealth, but to collect husbands is a sign of paresis. A modern bachelor makes love with his hand on his pulse and his eye on the clock. Oh yes, there is a vast difference between the savage and the civilized man, but it is never apparent to their wives until after breakfast. A sympathetic woman is like a rose which a man wears over his heart; a stupid woman is like a cabbage which he keeps in his kitchen; but a merely "clever" woman is like a dahlia--he knows he ought to admire her, but he had just as lief do so from a distance. While a woman is weeping over the ghost of a dead love in the graveyard of memory, a man is usually off pursuing a lot of little new loves in the garden of forgetfulness. Life is like a poem or a story; the most important thing about it is not that it should be long, but that it should be beautiful and interesting. The older a woman gets the more trusting she becomes; at twenty a man can feed her only diluted flattery; but at forty she can swallow it, straight, without a quiver. No girl who is going to marry need bother to win a college degree; she just naturally becomes a "Master of Arts" and a "Doctor of Philosophy" after catering to an ordinary man for a few years. The average man takes all the natural taste out of his food by covering it with ready-made sauces, and all the personality out of a woman by covering her with his ready-made ideals. Heaven is not a mythical place. It can be found right down in the heart of the man who has found the work he loves and the woman he loves. An ideal lover is one with such a keen dramatic instinct that he can convince himself of his sincerity--even when he knows that he is lying. Love is a matter of chance; matrimony a matter of money, and divorce--a matter of course. Adam was the first man to "misunderstand" a woman. A man is like a park squirrel; if you fling your favors or your charms at his head he will never come up and eat out of your hand. What a man calls his "conscience" is merely the mental action that follows a sentimental reaction after too much wine or love. In the School of Love, a man is forever just taking up a brand new "study" and discovering that all the old loves were nothing but "preparatory practice." The eugenic idea of choosing a husband would be perfectly lovely, only that a husband isn't a matter of choice, but of chance, accident or blind luck. Love is woman's eternal spring, man's eternal fall. It isn't beauty, and it isn't cleverness, and it isn't clothes that make a particular woman fascinating. It is just a sort of magnetic current which seems to run around her and set her eyes a-twinkling--and a man's heart tingling. It is utterly useless to tell a man the honest truth. That is the last thing on earth which a man ever tells a woman--so of course it's the last thing on earth which he ever expects to hear from her. The average man, like "all Gaul," is divided into three parts: his vanity, his digestion and his ambition. Cater to the first, guard the second and stimulate the third--and his love will take care of itself. There is no such tonic for a man's nerve as a capricious wife and no such softener for his backbone as a self-sacrificing one. A man can sit in the moonlight and talk "New Thought" to a pretty girl and at the same time look right into her eyes with all the old, old ones. Bohemia is an oasis in the desert of life where only the rich-in-dreams may go and only the poor-in-purse may stay. There is no way of two people really knowing each other until after they are married and have to share the same dollar, the same table, the same newspaper and the same chiffonier.
WHAT EVERY WOMAN WONDERS
A man's life is like a musical comedy; there is always one woman in it who is the star--but it takes ninety-nine others to make up the "ensemble." Nothing so annoys a man as to have a woman "cheer him up," when he is enjoying the exquisite luxury of feeling sorry for himself. The modern girl's "perfect candor" has taken the sin out of sincerity--and most of the sweet scent out of the flower of sentiment. Without the Serpent, the Garden of Eden would seem a dull old place to most men. Love is neither a bonfire, nor a kitchen-fire; but an altar-fire, to be kept burning forever with prayer and reverence. In the language of love, "Forever!" means for quite a little while and "Never!" means not until next season. "A fool there was, and he made his prayer"--to two women on the same party wire. Love is a matter of give and take--marriage, a matter of misgive and mistake. Even a fool knows enough to laugh at a man's joke--but only a born Siren knows enough to hang onto his coat-lapel and beg him to "Tell it again!" Some men are born for matrimony, some achieve matrimony--but most of them are merely poor dodgers. There are many times when a woman would gladly drop her husband, if she did not feel morally certain that some other woman would come right along and pick him up. Alas! In choosing a husband, it seems that you've always got to decide between something tame and uninteresting, like a gold-fish, and something wild and fascinating, like a mountain goat. Perhaps the first time a young man actually realizes that he is married is when he catches himself looking at other women with that strange, new, wistful sort of interest. It is at once the mission and the punishment of the flirt to go through life tapping the hearts of men, that they may overflow--for other women. The sweetest things in a woman's life are her "yesterdays"--the sweetest things in a man's life are his "tomorrows." The man who is fondly looking for a perfect angel almost invariably ends by marrying some little devil who knows how to persuade him that her horns are merely the signs of a budding halo. Woman is to most men what "heart-failure" is to the doctors--something that it is always convenient to blame any old thing on. "The mind has a thousand eyes--the heart but one!"--and that usually goes fast asleep, after marriage. Philosophy is the only kind of "sweetening" with which to make life palatable. Estimated from a wife's experience, the average man spends fully one-quarter of his life in looking for his shoes. An "idealist" is a man who is content to worship a woman from afar--and let some gross, unselfish materialist marry her and support her. Changing husbands is about as satisfactory as changing a bundle from one hand to the other; it gives you only temporary relief. France may claim the happiest marriages in the world, but the happiest divorces in the world are "made in America." No doubt, even Solomon told each of his 700 wives that he had merely thought he loved the others, but that she was the only girl he "ever really cared for" in just that way. Love is what makes a man appear blissfully happy, when a woman is mussing up the precious wisp of hair across his bald spot. Love is what makes a woman laugh delightedly when a man is telling her for the second time, a story which she knew by heart before he told it to her the first time. All this "sex-antagonism" must have started when Adam brought in the first rabbit and ordered Eve to make it into Chicken-a-la-King. When a man takes a notion to marry, he doesn't start following it up--he merely stops running away. A woman is young until the light dies out of her last lover's eyes. Whenever a pretty girl runs her fingers through his hair, a cautious bachelor can't help thinking of what happened to Samson. Success in flirtation, as in gambling, consists in "getting out of the game" at the psychological moment before your luck begins to turn. Being a husband's "economic equal" may be awfully noble and advanced; but it usually means being all of his ribs and most of his vertebrae. Men have been classified as "what women marry." They have two feet, two hands and sometimes two wives--but never more than one collar-button or one idea at a time. When a man says, "Nobody understands me," don't fancy he is suffering. He is merely trying to let you know, in a modest way, that he is a profound, fascinating mystery. A man snatches the first kiss, pleads for the second, demands the third, takes the fourth, accepts the fifth--and endures all the rest of them. After two years, an engagement doesn't need to be broken; it just naturally sags in the middle and comes apart. Eve had as much choice in the matter of a husband as any other woman. She merely accepted what fate sent her, and pretended to have gotten her "ideal." It is not much comfort to be able to keep your husband's material body in the house evenings, when his astral body keeps wandering off to the club, every few minutes. In love, sweet are the uses of diversity! A woman's love "bursts into flower," but judging from the time it takes him to discover it, a man's love must be developed by the wearisome process of geological formation. If a man and a diamond are big and brilliant enough, one doesn't mind a few flaws in them; but, for some reason, Heaven knows why, a woman and a pearl are expected to be absolutely perfect. When Fate places a laurel wreath on the brow of a genius she hitches a plough to his shoulders and holds a Tantalus cup to his lips. It isn't the man who paints his virtues in three colors and begs her to marry him, but the one who paints his sins in vermilion and begs her to "save" him who usually wins the girl. If you want a man to propose don't try to make your family coddle him. Make them hate him, because a man never really "takes hold" until somebody begins to pull the other way. The man who falls in love at first sight never knows what has struck him, and therefore mercifully escapes all the agonizing slow-torture of feeling himself sink, inch by inch, into the quicksands of matrimony. Never believe that justice is all you owe your husband; what every man needs, from the woman who loves him, is faith, hope and charity--and above all, mercy. Even a coquette can be loyal to one man--until she prefers another; but a man's heart is like a ferry-boat--always going backward and forward, and never staying "docked." Soft, sweet things with a lot of fancy dressing--that is what a little boy loves to eat and a grown man prefers to marry.
SECOND INTERLUDE
A woman wastes more time in dreaming over a past flirtation than it would take a man to start a half dozen new ones. Flattery affects a man like any other sort of "dope." It stimulates and exhilarates him for the moment, but usually ends by going to his head and making him act foolish. The only way to be happy in this world is to take men and flirtations as they come--and let them go as they go. Almost any straight path of devotion will lead to a woman's heart. It's this zigzagging from sentiment to cold fear and from adoration to self-preservation, that makes the way so long and dangerous for the average man. Solomon may have been the most famous husband who ever lived, but as a hero he isn't in it with the man who manages to get along happily and contentedly all through life with just one wife! Woman! The peg on which the wit hangs his jest, the preacher his text, the cynic his grouch, and the sinner his justification! Everybody seems to be going through life at automobile speed nowadays; but alas, there are no sentimental garages by Life's wayside at which we may obtain a fresh supply of emotions, purchase a new thrill or patch up an exploded ideal. A man's work lasts from sun to sun, but his excuses for staying late at the office are never done. Every man wants a woman to appeal to his better side, his nobler instincts and his higher nature--and another woman to help him forget them. Never rush into a love affair. Love is a waiting game, which requires nerve, concentration, and a poker face. The average man marries one woman just in order to escape from a lot of others--and then flirts with a lot of others just in order to forget that he is married to one. Once a girl's heart beat faster at the sound of her sweetheart's footstep on the garden path; but now it requires the hum of a twelve-cylinder motor-car to rouse her from her lassitude. The one thing about love-making that the modern man simply can't understand is that, in order to make it thrilling and interesting, he must really put a little love in it. In the war of the sexes a woman hides her scars of battle beneath a smile and a coat of rouge. A man goes about displaying his as proudly as though they were medals. Occasionally one meets a man who plunges into a love affair as he plunges into the surf, but most of them just sit back lazily on the beach and let the waves of emotion splash harmlessly over them.
"NEVERS" FOR THE "RIB."
Never refuse to kiss him--but sometimes keep him waiting a little while. Love thrives so much better on the stimulant of suspense than on the anaesthetic of memory. Never question him about his past love affairs. It is not the women he has loved, but those he has not yet loved, who will bother you. Never fling your old flames in his face. If you do he will soon cease to be jealous of the men you "might have married" and begin to envy them. Never accuse him of being less ardent than he was before he married you. Many a husband would never discover that he was no longer madly in love, if his wife did not keep constantly reminding him of it. Never chide him for the same fault more than once. A man can become so accustomed to the thought of his own faults that he will begin to cherish them as charming little "personal characteristics." Never refer to your own defects. A man always accepts a woman at her own valuation; and he doesn't prize anything that advertises herself as a "second." Never laugh at him. Woman is supposed to be the only human joke and man the only laughing animal--except the hyena. Never cry before him. A woman's tears soon wash all the color out of a man's love; after the third deluge they have no power to move him--except to move him out of the house. Never threaten him, scold him nor argue with him. Act! A woman's arguments affect a man as water does a cat. He simply waits for them to dry up--and then he goes out and does as he pleases. Never doubt his word--even when you know he is lying. A husband is like religion: to give you any real comfort, he must be taken with blind faith. Never put him on a leash. The dog or the husband that has to be tied is always the one that eventually has to be advertised in the "lost" columns. Never forget that marriage should be a privilege, not a prison; home a refectory, not a reformatory; and wives jolliers, and not jailers.
SYNCOPATIONS
Hanging on a man's word may flatter him, but hanging on his neck merely frightens him. Every gay dog has his day--after. One may be loved forever! It is the vain desire to go on being a "heart-breaker" after one's flirting days are over that constitutes the real tragedy of age. A man regards a woman's love first as an unattainable dream, then as a boon, then as a blessing, then as a right, then as a matter-of-course--and, last, as a punishment. A man's idea of "preserving the unities" is to find out what side of an argument his wife is on, and then take the other side, in order to keep it from sagging. After a bachelor's heart has been patched up, cut down and remodeled to fit the romantic ideal of one girl after another, there is seldom enough of it left to go all the way around the honeymoon. There is no question of degree in matrimony. You can be a little bit in love or a little bit ill; but you can't be a little bit married or a little bit dead. Telling lies is a fault in a boy, an art in a lover, an accomplishment in a bachelor, and second-nature in a married man. If your husband is wrapped up in his work from 9 A.M. to 6 P.M. you needn't bother to investigate his morals. Satan wouldn't waste his talents trying to tempt a man with so little time and energy for the devil's business. You can't argue, frighten or nag a man into loving you just because he "ought to"--because, dearie, love is not exactly a man's feeling for a thought-censor, a creditor or a critic-on-the-hearth. There are more ways of killing a man's love than by strangling it to death--but that's the usual way. In matters of the heart most men are still in a state of barbarism, slightly tempered by woman. A man is never old until his spirit is worn out, his rosy hopes have turned gray, his illusions have faded and he has wrinkles on his heart. An optimist is merely an ex-pessimist with his pockets full of money, his digestion in good condition and his wife in the country. Every time a man hits a woman's vanity he makes a dent in her love. A man's first lie wounds a woman's heart, the second breaks it, the third mends it, and all the rest simply harden it. Dissimulation is the price of peace--but it's awfully hard for a married woman to preserve the peace by deceiving her husband into thinking that he is deceiving her, every time he tries. Of course men are not so suspicious as women. A woman in love would be jealous of a store dummy; but how can a man possibly suspect that any girl on whom he may bestow himself could ever think of anybody else? A good woman inspires a man, a brilliant woman interests him, a beautiful woman fascinates him--but the considerate woman gets him. There never was a man too nearsighted to see the look of admiration in a pretty woman's eyes. WIFE: The woman from whom a man failed to escape and to whom he complacently refers as "the little woman I married." MARRIAGE: The intermission between the wedding and the divorce. WEDDING: The point at which a man stops toasting a woman and begins roasting her. Most girls, nowadays, would give a lot for a few solid vows, a few unshrinkable signs of devotion and a really convincing kiss. It isn't a husband's disinclination to listen to his wife's conversation, but that "I-am-ready-to-bear-with-you" expression with which he does it that grates on her nerves so. The average man has so much heart that he apparently thinks it a pity to waste it all on one woman. Alas! Why is it that when your cup of happiness is full somebody always jogs your elbow! Never judge a man's love by the ardor of his first kiss, nor by the tenderness of his second, but by the eagerness with which he seeks the third. When it comes to making love, a girl can always listen so much faster than a man can talk. If nothing but their heart-strings became entangled, people would not find the marriage tie so binding; it is a man's purse-strings and a woman's apron-strings that really form the Gordian knot. In love, a man loses first his head, then his vanity, then his poise--and, last of all, his heart. It is much more comfortable to be considered a "little devil" and get a credit mark every time you do anything right, than to be considered an "angel" and get a black mark every time you do anything human. Love is a game at which a woman must play against stacked cards, and without the slightest inkling of the trump. A woman's last resort is henna--a man's Gehenna. To a woman marriage is the beginning of life; to a man it is the end of "liberty and the pursuit of happiness." Perfect wife: That which a married man always fancies he might have gotten if he had kept on experimenting a little longer. Why is it that, no matter how much a man thinks of one girl, he can't help thinking of a lot of others at the same time? Don't waste time trying to break a man's heart; be satisfied if you can just manage to chip it in a brand new place.
Most marriages, nowadays, seem built for speed rather than for endurance. A divorcee is one who has graduated from the Correspondence School of Experience. Marriage, according to the merry Widow-reno, is a "perfectly lovely experience to have had!" Grass Widow: The angel whom a man loved, the human being he married, and the devil he divorced. Most actresses are married--now and then; most literary women--off and on; most society women--from time to time.
When a woman obtains her second divorce, one hardly knows whether to class her as a good loser, a bad chooser, or just a "poor sport." Why is it that when a man hears that a woman has had a "past," he is always so anxious to brighten up her present? Many a woman's sole reason for getting a divorce is because she is tired of holding onto heaven with one hand and onto a man with the other. When two people decide to get a divorce, it isn't a sign that they "don't understand" one another, but a sign that they have, at last, begun to. That "just-after-the-divorce" feeling is not the exhilarating thing many people imagine it. It is more like the mingled sensation of pain and relief that comes the moment after you have removed a tight slipper and before the ache has subsided. Divorce is the Great Divide, over which most men expect to pass into the Happy Hunting Grounds. Reno! The land of the free and the grave of the home!
THIRD INTERLUDE
"Intuition" is what a man calls a girl's ability to see through him, before marriage; "suspicion" is what he calls it, after marriage. Satan, himself, could no doubt make any woman love him, if he took the trouble to convince her that it was "her beauty that drove him to Hades." Of course, polygamy is dreadful; but, at least, an Oriental wife can come within four or five guesses of knowing where her husband spends his evenings. Take care of a woman's vanity--and her love will take care of itself. Ever since Eve started it all by offering Adam the apple, woman's punishment has been to have to supply a man with food and then suffer the consequences when it disagrees with him. The wings of love are not clipped by marriage; they merely molt for lack of exercise. All love is 99.44 per cent pure: pure imagination, pure vanity, pure curiosity, pure folly or whatever else it happens to be. Don't waste your tears on the girls a heart-breaker should have married and didn't; save them for the girl he will marry and shouldn't. It requires a little moisture to make a postage stamp stick and a little cold water of indifference to make a sweetheart stick. There are only two kinds of perfectly faultless men--the dead and the deadly. In order to see a man in his most interesting colors a woman always has to scrape off a lot of unnecessary whitewashing. Marriage is a discord that turns "Love's Old Sweet Song" from a eulogy into an elegy. The height of the average girl's ambition is just about six feet. You can always cure a man of love-sickness with "mental suggestion" merely by suggesting to him that the girl is trying to marry him. Marriage is the operation by which a woman's vanity and a man's egotism are extracted without an anaesthetic. Jealousy is the false alarm that wakes us up from love's young dream. The most successful men are not those who have been inspired by a wise woman's love, but those who have perspired in order to gratify a foolish woman's whims. It is easier to keep half a dozen lovers guessing than to keep one lover after he has stopped guessing. A man's soul lies so close to his digestion that when he looks blue and downhearted, a woman never knows whether to offer him a kiss, a meal, a dose of philosophy or a dyspepsia tablet. A woman is so complex that she can prove to a man by every possible convincing argument that she feels nothing but platonic friendship for him, at the same time that she is thinking how she would like to run her fingers through his hair. One reason why a man's life is so much fuller than a woman's is because he spends nearly three-quarters of it in hunting up things for a woman to do. Oh yes, a woman always looks up to a brave, strong man whom she can respect--and then nine times out of ten, goes and marries some pallid weakling whom she can "mother." A man spends his boyhood struggling against an education, his youth struggling against matrimony and his middle-age struggling against embonpoint; but sooner or later he succumbs to all of them. No man wants an "equal" but an angel. If Satan himself should decide to marry he wouldn't go around looking for a congenial little Satanette, but for a paragon who had a pull with St. Peter.
Second mourning is that interesting period, at which a widow continues to weep with one eye while she begins to flirt with the other. When a widow comes in at the door, a debutante's chances fly out of the window. No matter how many wrinkles a widow may have in her face, she always has enough at her fingertips to offset them. Even a dead husband gives a widow some advantage over a spinster; the very debts her husband left afford her something to boast about to the unmarried woman who has only her own board bills to pay. A girl takes a man for better or for worse--but a widow merely takes him for granted. Girls are the milk and honey which sweeten a man's life; widows, the caviare and wine which relieve its flatness and give it spice and piquancy. A girl knows exactly what kind of man she wants to marry; but a widow knows all the kinds she doesn't want to marry, and usually makes a safe selection by the wise process of elimination. A widow's chief consolation in remarrying is probably that she finds it less exhausting to sit up and wait for one man to come home evenings, than to sit up and wait for a lot of them to go home. Widows have all the honor and glory without any of the trials of matrimony; a live husband may be a necessity, but a dead one is a luxury. Matrimony is the price of love--widowhood, the rebate.
IMPROVISATIONS
A man may honestly admire a superior woman; but when it comes to marrying, he usually looks about for something far enough beneath him to enjoy being ordered about and patted on the head. A girl's heart is like her dressing-table--crowded with tenderly cherished little souvenirs of love; a man's, like his pipe, is carefully cleaned and emptied after each flame has gone out. A man doesn't ask a girl to "name the day" any more; he merely pleads guilty to loving her and then closes his eyes while she passes sentence on him and decide when he shall begin "serving time." When a woman reforms she bleaches her conscience down to the roots as she does her hair; a man simply gives his a coat of whitewashing so that he will have a nice, clean space in which to begin all over again. When a bachelor sniffs through his letters before opening them in the morning, it is not a sign that he is looking for dynamite, but that he is looking for a note bearing a brand of sachet which he has mistaken for some girl's "sweet personality." At the awakening from love's young dream the woman's first thought is, "How can I break his heart?" The man's, "How can I break away?" A man falls in love through his eyes, a woman through her imagination, and then they both speak of it as an affair of "the heart." No, Clarice, a man's idea of being loved isn't exactly being followed around with a hot water bottle, a box of pills and the eternal question: "Do you love me as much as ever?" One grass widow doesn't make a summer resort--but she can always make it interesting. When a man has baggy trousers nowadays it is from falling on his knees to an automobile--not to a girl. A black lie always shows up against the dazzling background of truth; it's all the little white ones a man keeps telling you that can't be spotted or distinguished from the rest of his conversation. The only time when a sense of humor profits a woman anything is when she can laugh at herself for having tried to charm a man by dazzling him with it. Most men fall in love with a sudden jolt, and wake up to find that they are married to an "impulse." It's a lame love that has to be carried through the honeymoon in a three-thousand-dollar touring car. In the mathematics of a bachelor one kiss makes a flirtation, two kisses make one conquest, three kisses make a love-affair and four kisses make one tired. There are "chain-smokers" who light one cigarette from the dying end of another--and there are also "chain lovers" who light one flame from the dying embers of another. Eve had one advantage over all the rest of her sex. In his wildest moments of rage Adam never could accuse her of being "just like her mother!" Every woman has a different notion of an ideal husband; but every woman's ideal lover is the same impossible combination of saint and devil, brute and baby, hero and mollycoddle, that never is seen anywhere off the stage or outside the pages of a "best thriller." Love is a voyage of discovery, marriage the goal--and divorce the relief expedition. A man never can comprehend why a woman can't understand how he can be dead in love with one girl and acutely alive to the charms of a lot of others at the same time. Jealousy is the tie that binds--and binds--and binds. It is not the fear of being shipwrecked that keeps a bachelor from embarking on the sea of matrimony; it is the awful horror of being becalmed. Nowadays most women grow old gracefully; most men, disgracefully. A man can forgive a woman for having made a fool of herself over any man on earth--except himself. Eternity: The interval between the time when a woman discovers that a man is in love with her and the time when he finds it out himself and tells her about it. The follies which a man regrets the most, in his life, are those which he didn't commit when he had the opportunity. In the average man's opinion the command, "Thou shalt not steal," does not apply to a kiss, a heart, an umbrella, an hotel or an after-dinner story. To a woman the first kiss is just the end of the beginning; to a man, it is the beginning of the end. The qualities a man seeks in a bride no more resemble those he will want in a wife than a cabaret rag-ditty resembles a lullaby, but two years ahead is farther than any man can see when he is looking into a pretty girl's eyes.
Of course it is easier to marry a widower than a bachelor. A man who has been through the Armageddon of one marriage has no spirit of battle left in him. When a widow begins curling her hair, again, or a widower begins worrying about his thinness on top, Cupid chuckles and gets out his arrows and Satan smiles behind his hand. In the matrimonial market a seasoned bachelor is just a shop-worn remnant; a divorce is a cast-off, second-hand article; but a widower is a treasured heirloom inherited only through death. After his wedding day, a man usually tucks all the flattering adjectives and tender nothings in his vocabulary away in a pigeon-hole and marks them "Not to be opened until widowerhood." Perhaps there may not be so much excitement in marrying a widower; but there is a lot more comfort in getting something that another woman has broken to double harness than in lashing yourself to a bucking bronco fresh from the wild. No matter how unhappy a man may have been with his first wife nothing on earth will make him flatter her successor by acknowledging that she was not a combination of Circe, St. Cecilia and the Venus di Milo. The girl who marries a widower may be a sort of "second edition," but the girl who marries a seasoned bachelor is apt to be a forty-second edition. When a widower vows he will "never marry again," listen for the wedding bells! The "Never-agains" are the easiest fruit in the Garden of Love. It's the "Never-at-alls!" who are harder than a newsboy's conscience, colder than yesterday's kiss, and less impressionable than a boarding-house steak. If a woman could foresee how irresistible her husband would look with a bereaved expression on his face and a black band on his coat sleeve, it would give her the strength to live forever. Some widowers are bereaved--others, relieved. A man may forget all about how to make love during ten years of matrimony, but it's wonderful how quickly he can brush up on the fine points again after he becomes a widower.
FOURTH INTERLUDE
Business girl's motto: "Better marry and be a poor man's slave than stay single and be a rich man's stenographer." When a clever girl lets fly the arrows of wit she should be careful to see that a man's vanity is not the bull's eye. It is difficult for a man to reconcile a girl's absorbing interest in picture-hats, pearl powder, and Paquin models with real brains; but somehow his own enthusiasm for baseball and golf never seems to him incompatible with superior intelligence. Don't fancy your husband has ceased to love you merely because he no longer seems to notice your presence around the house; wait until he gets so that he doesn't even notice your absence. A good husband is one who will get up and lift the ice off the dumbwaiter instead of lying back and lifting his voice to tell you how to do it without "hurting your itsy bitsy fingers." The shallower a man's love, the more it bubbles over into eloquence. When his emotions go deep, words stick in his throat, and have to be hauled out of him with a derrick. To be happy with a man you must understand him a lot and love him a little; to be happy with a woman you must love her a lot and not try to understand her at all. A man with savoir faire may scintillate in a crowd, but it takes a "bashful man" to shine in a dim cozy corner. Every bride fancies that she married the original "cave-man" until she tries to persuade him to go out and argue with the furniture-movers. What a man calls his conscience in a love affair is merely a pain in his vanity, the moral ache that accompanies a headache, or the mental action that follows a sentimental reaction. It never pays to compromise! Cheap clothes, cheap literature, cheap sports, cheap flirtations--a life filled with these is nothing but an electric flash, advertising "something just as good." Just at first, every man seems to fancy that it takes nothing but brute force and determination to run an automobile or a wife; after the smash-up he changes his mind. Brains and beauty are an impossible combination in a woman--not necessarily impossible to find, but impossible to live with. When a woman looks at a man in evening dress, she sometimes can't help wondering why he wants to blazon his ancestry to the world by wearing a coat with a long tail to it. When a man says he loves you don't ask him "Why," because by the time he has found his reason he will undoubtedly have lost his enthusiasm. Pshaw! It is no more reasonable to expect a man to love you tomorrow because he loves you today, than it is to assume that the sun will be shining tomorrow because the weather is pleasant today. Sending a man a sentimental note, just after he has spent the evening with you, has about the same thrilling effect as offering him a sandwich, immediately after dinner. A "good woman," according to Mrs. Grundy, is one who would scorn to sacrifice society for the sake of a man but will cheerfully sacrifice the man she marries for the sake of society. The flower of a man's love is not an immortelle, but a morning-glory; which fades the moment the sun of a woman's smiles becomes too intense and glowing. The sweetest part of a love affair is just before the confession when you begin discussing love in the abstract and gazing concretely into one another's eyes. Marriage is a photogravure made from the glowing illusions which Love has painted on the canvas of the heart. A woman may have to reach heaven before she tastes supernal joy; but to taste supreme punishment she has only to watch the love-mist die out of a man's eyes. Nothing frightens a man like a woman's stony silence. Somehow in spite of his lack of intuition, he has a subconscious premonition that her love is dead when she is too weary and disinterested to "answer back." The satisfaction in flattering a man consists in the fact that, whether you lay it on thick or thin, rough or smooth, a little of it is always bound to stick. Love is a furnace in which the man builds the fire, and forever afterward expects the woman to keep it glowing, by supplying all the fuel. The gods must love summer flirtations--they die so young. A man may have heart enough to love more than one woman at a time, but unless he is a fatalist he should have brains enough not to try it. When love dies a wise married couple give its ashes a respectful burial, and hang a good photograph of it on the wall for the benefit of the public.
HINTS ON HOW TO CONDUCT ENCORE PERFORMANCES OF THE CEREMONY
Always send your former husband a notice of your marriage; true politeness consists in giving pleasure to others. If you meet your ex-husband's fiancee, treat her with sympathetic courtesy. Remember that she is more to be pitied than scorned. If the bridegroom does not show up, marry the best man. After a few weeks you will not be able to notice the difference between them. Either will make you the same old excuses, tell you the same stories and give you the same "stock" kisses in the morning. When your second husband begins to speak wistfully of your first husband, do not chide him; remember that misery loves company, and perhaps it is a comfort to him to think that some one else has been as foolish as he has. Never consider your wedding a settled thing until you have gotten the man to the altar. The primary rule for marrying is "First catch your husband!" Besides, there's many a slip 'twixt the license and the certificate--and you may let him slip. In selecting husbands, always consider that it is quality, not quantity, that counts. One or two marriages, like one or two drinks, may not have any visible effect upon you. But don't make it a custom. A woman marries the first time, you know, for love, the second time for companionship, the third time for a support--and the rest of the time just from habit. When marrying a second time refrain from asking your friends what they think about it. Remember that they all think you are a fool.
INTERMEZZO
The hardest thing in life is to discover the exact geographical location of a man's grouch--whether it is in his tooth, his vanity or his digestion, or is just a chronic condition of the whole system. Being in love is like a fascinating spin at will in an automobile; being married, like a trolley trip on rails, with somebody ringing the bell at you every few minutes. A woman's love is composed of maternal tenderness, childlike inconsistency, torturing jealousy and sublime unselfishness--and how is a man ever going to comprehend a mixture like that? Alas, why is it that the most popular and fascinating women are so often the last to marry, and then nearly always pluck either a broken stick from the tide of life or a brand from the burning? Some women can be fooled all of the time, and all women can be fooled some of the time, but the same woman can't be fooled by the same man in the same way more than half of the time. A woman always wants her photograph to flatter her, but a man is perfectly satisfied if he gets one that looks as fascinating and impressive as he thinks he does. A jealous husband can put two and two together--and make fourteen. When a man hesitates to propose to a girl he is never quite sure whether it is the fear of being "turned down" or the fear of being "taken up" which paralyzes him. Spring is the time of the year when the eternal monotony of the daily grind gives a man brain-fag--and the eternal monotony of any one girl appears to give him heart-fag. A wise woman puts a grain of sugar into everything she says to a man and takes a grain of salt with everything he says to her. Of course, a girl hates to wound a man; but sometimes, after a painful parting, it would seem so much more artistic if he would only remain "wounded" just a little longer. Making a man promise to drop a woman simply excites his sympathy for her, so that, before he has fairly cut the string, he is anxious to tie a knot in it again. The hardest task of a girl's life, nowadays, is to prove to a man that his intentions are serious. Love, without faith, illusions and trust, is--Lord forgive us--cinders, ashes and dust! A man who strays for love of a woman may sometimes be reclaimed; but the man who strays for love of amusement or love or novelty will never "stay put" for any girl. Most girls, nowadays, would give almost as much for a little genuine sentiment and a really convincing kiss, as for a genuine "old master" and a really convincing novel. There are a hundred things that the cleverest man in the world never can understand--and ninety-nine of them are women. Many a man who is too tender-hearted to pour salt on an oyster will pour sarcasm all over his wife's vanity and then wonder why she always shrivels up in her shell at the sight of him. A grub may become a butterfly, but the man who marries a butterfly, expecting to turn her into a grub, should remember that nature never works that way. A married man's hardest cross is not to be able to brag to his wife about the women who "tried to flirt with him." Plato has lured more men into matrimony than Cupid. A man can see an arrow coming and dodge it, but platonic friendship strikes him in the back. Many a man has started out to "string" a girl, and gotten so tangled up, that the string ended in a marriage tie. Habit is the cement which holds the links of matrimony together when the ties of romance have crumbled. He that telleth a secret unto a married man may prepare himself for a lot of free advertising; for, lo, the conjugal pillow is the root of all gossip. To make a man perfectly happy tell him he works too hard, that he spends too much money, that he is "misunderstood" or that he is "different;" none of this is necessarily complimentary, but it will flatter him infinitely more than merely telling him that he is brilliant, or noble, or wise, or good. After a woman has lain awake half the night in order to be able to call her husband in time to catch his train it's rather hard to be hated for it, just like an alarm clock. A man expects a woman to laugh at all his jokes, admire all his bon mots, agree with all his opinions, and be blind to all his faults--and then he scornfully wonders why women are so "hypocritical." A diamond and a lump of coal are merely two varieties of carbon; but they are as different as the two things which the right wife and the wrong wife can make of the same man. Sometimes man proposes--and then keeps the girl waiting until the Lord kindly interposes.
(A LEAF FROM ADAM'S DICTIONARY.)
RIB--That part of man's self of which he thinks the least and brags the most. WIFE (The Inferior Fraction)--The excuse for all a man's sins, the cause of all his failings, the keeper of his conscience, the guardian of his digestion, and the repository of his grouches. BETTER-HALF--The half that is always left at home. COQUETTE--Any woman who is so unreasonable as not to return a man's affections. FLIRT--Any woman, over whom a man has insisted on making a fool of himself. OLD MAID--An unmarried woman with more wrinkles than money. BACHELOR GIRL--An unmarried woman with more money than wrinkles. KITTEN--Any woman under sixty for whom a man feels a temporary tenderness. QUEEN--A pretty woman whom a man has not yet kissed. "IDEAL"--The particular woman, to whom a man happens to be making love. CLINGING VINE--A woman who allows her husband to think that he is having his own way. HELPMATE--A combination of playmate, soul-mate, and light-running domestic. GODDESS--An impossible woman, who exists only in novels and in a man's imagination. PARAGON--The kind of woman a man ought to marry, wants to marry, intends to marry--and never does.
1 THESE three things Man feareth: Oysters out of season,
Last year's sandals and yesterday's fish,
The soul of a man is white--or black, or yellow, or dun;
Empty the words of the prayer, when the Pharisee prayeth aloud;
As the pearl that I dropped in the glass can never again be mine,
Geese walk not alone; sheep will follow sheep;
The young man calleth for wine, the old for crystal water.
When the game is over, vain the loser's sigh.
Flatter him boldly, Daughter, be he old or wise or callow;
Call the bald man, "Boy;" make the sage thy toy;
ALL the love routes lead to a kiss--but some men make love with the directness of an express train, some as haltingly as a local and some with the charm, smoothness and variation of a "special." When a man complains of the girls who "pursue" him, don't forget that the mark of a real "girl-charmer" is his dead silence concerning all women except the one to whom he happens to be talking. A man's idea of displaying "resolution" appears to be first to find out what a woman wants him to do, and then to proceed "resolutely" not to do it. Presence of mind in love making is a sure sign of absence of heart; no man begins to be serious until he begins to be foolish. The girl a man marries is never the one he ought to marry or intended to marry, but just some "innocent bystander" who happened to be in the way at the psychological moment. A woman's heart is like a frame, which holds only one picture at a time; a man's is more like a cinemetograph. A man's love is not actually dead until he begins subconsciously to think of his wife as the person who makes him wear his rubbers, mow the lawn, put up the fly-screens, and explain where he has been all Saturday afternoon. The average man is so busy backing away from the girls he ought to marry that he usually backs right into the arms of the one woman under Heaven that he ought not to marry. A man is like a motor-car which always balks on the trolley-tracks and runs at top speed down hill; a wife is the human brake that prevents him from going to destruction. When a girl refuses a man his greatest emotion is not disappointment, but astonishment that she should be so blind to her own luck. Nothing bores a man so much as for a woman to give him all her love--when he wanted only a little of it. Solomon was the only man who ever had six hundred and ninety-nine alibis when one of his wives detected the fragrance of another woman's sachet on his coat lapel. Every man "rocks the boat" of happiness at least once during a love affair--usually by trying to leap out of it before it lands in the port of Matrimony. All a man needs in order to win any woman is a little audacity, a little mendacity and plenty of pertinacity. The only chain that can bind love is an endless chain of compliments. When a woman doesn't marry it is usually because she has never met the man with whom she could be perfectly happy; but when a man remains single it is usually because he has never met the woman without whom he could not be perfectly happy. Most men expect to "reform" between the last dose of medicine and the last breath. Speaking of the modern advance in the "arts and crafts" it requires more art to get a husband and more craft to keep one nowadays, than it ever did. A frank man may be the noblest work of God, but he is as much of a nuisance in feminine society as a woman on a fishing trip. There is always a chance that a man may escape from the bonds of matrimony; but an old bachelor is wedded by all the bonds of nature to a collection of habits from which nothing but death can divorce him. By the time he marries, a bachelor's heart has been pressed, cleaned and mended so often that it will barely hold together through the honeymoon. It seems so unreasonable of man to expect a woman to think straight, walk straight, or talk straight, considering that she was made from his rib--the crookedest bone in his body. Motto for a married man's den: "Others love your wife, why not you?" A man's idea of being perfectly loyal to a woman is to "think of her always"--even when he is kissing another woman. Love is just a glittering illusion with which we gild the hard, cold facts of life--until all the world seems bright and shining! Most men are so busy dodging one love affair that they step right back under the wheels of another, and are fatally mangled. A brave man is always ready to "face the music"--provided it isn't that old tune from Lohengrin. If married couples would show as much respect for one another's personal liberty, habits and preferences as they do for one another's toothbrushes, love's young dream would not so often turn into a nightmare. It is the Siamese twin existence they impose on themselves that drives them to distraction or destruction. A man kills time with a golf stick; a woman with a lip-stick. It is foolish to fancy that a man is thinking of proposing to you; a man never proposes to any woman, until he has gotten past "thinking." If a man would employ a little more commonsense before marriage and a little more incense afterwards, matrimony would be more of an inspiration and less of a visitation. Never trust a husband too far, nor a bachelor too near. The man who takes a kiss "for granted" doesn't stand a chance beside the man who takes it before it is granted. Husband: A miniature volcano, constantly smoking, usually grumbling, and always liable to violent and unexpected eruptions. On the journey of matrimony, there are no garages where punctured illusions can be patched up, shattered ideals mended, and empty hearts refilled. Of course a man is not as jealous as a woman--because it's so hard for him to believe that a girl on whom he bestows himself could possibly wish for anything better. The making of a husband out of a mere man is not a sinecure; it's one of the highest plastic arts known to civilization. Before marriage a woman says sweetly, "I understand you!" After marriage she says coldly, "I see through you!"
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