 CHAPTER 6 ON MAKING LOVE There are as many ways of making love as there are of making soup, and probably there are as many kinds of love as there are of flavours. And palates, both sentimental and physical, evidently differ widely. And yet, if you would know the secret of success with women, it is said in a word, ardour. And would ye, o women, know in a word the secret of success with men? It lies in responsiveness. In matters amatory, or rather pre-amatory, feminine tactics are infallible and consummate. Let no man think to cope with feminine strategy. A rake has more chance than a niny which doubtless has been said before. In love, as in all things, indecision spells ruination. For there is a curious antagonism between the sexes. They are in a manner foes, not friends. The successful wooer is the captor, the raptor. The bride is the capture, the rapture. Etymologically as well as metaphorically, and veritably. And even she who is minded to be caught will not spare her huntsman the ardour of the chase, and lightly esteems him who imagines she is to be lightly one. In the chess-like game of love-making, no woman plays the checkmate. The game interests her too much to bring it to a finish. What pleases her most is stalemate, where, though the king cannot be captured, the captress can manoeuvre without end. A man imagines he wins by strenuous assault. The woman knows the victory was due to surrender. Wouldst thou ask ought of a woman? Question her eyes. They are vastly more voluble than her tongue. Indeed, there is no question too subtle, too delicate, too recondite, or too rash for human eyes to ask or answer. And he who has not learned the language of the eyes has yet to learn the alphabet of love. Besides, love speaks two languages, one with the lips, the other with the eyes. There is really a third, but this is Pentecostal. At all events lovers always talk in a cryptic tongue. There is but one universal language, the ocular. Not Volapuk nor Esperanto is as intelligible or as efficacious as this. No woman can be coerced into love, though she may be coerced into marriage, and man, the clumsy wielder of one blunt weapon, often enough stands a gape at his own powerlessness before the invulnerable woman of his desire. Indeed, the battle between the coquettish maid and determined man is like the battle between the Ritiarius and the Momillo. The coquetry ensnares the man as with a net against which his sword is useless. A woman's emotions are as practical as a man's reason. A man's emotions are never practical. This is why. In the emotional matter of love men and women so often lash. And perhaps it is a beneficial thing for the race that a woman's emotions are practical. For if neither the man nor the woman curbed the meadowsome pegasus emotion, me thinks the coats and fillies would want for hay and oats. It is a moot question which is the more fatally fascinating, the uniformed nurse or the weeded widow. But who has yet discovered the secret springs of fascination? For example, how is it that certain eyes and lips will enthrall while others leave as cold and inert? Does the potency lie in the eyes and the lips? Or is there some inscrutable and psychic part? At all events who will explain how it is that a man will sometimes forsake the most beautiful of wives and a woman will forsake the kindest of husbands to follow recklessly one who admits no comparison with the one forsaken? All we can say is that the potency of personality exceeds the potency of beauty. For powerful as is physical charm, it counts not for all in the matter of love. Yet what it may be that does count, and how and why it does count, no man living shall say. For is even love aware of all it seeks? And is it given to any to grant all that love beseeches? And yet, were all love sought bestowed, what sequel? Perhaps to a well to leave love but semi-satisfied. At bottom the real question is this, what will win and keep me another heart? But how to win and keep another heart, that is a thing has to be found out for oneself if it be discoverable. And always by the experimental method, since in matters amateury there is no a priori reasoning possible. All we know is that there is nothing more potent than passion, and the chasm which seems to innocence to yawn between virtue and frailty is leapt by that pegasus passion at a bound, but he blinds his rider in the feet. In spite of the poesy of love deeds are more potent than words, though perhaps it is well to pave the way for the one by the other. In spite too of the piety of love, love laughs at promises, that is, the promises that affect it. There is one miracle that women can always perform, and always it astonishes the man. It is this, to change from the recipient into the appellant. That is to say, when woman, usually regarded as the receiver, becomes the giver, or rather the demander, man's wonderment surpasses words. And let it be remembered that there is no re-crossing this rubicon. Mistrust a prolonged and obdurate resistance, either you are outclassed or you are outexperienced, and besides surrender after prolonged resistance rarely is brought about by emotion. A woman never really quite detests daring. This is why much is a forgiving a daring man. So too much is forgiven a pretty woman by the men. If the beginning of strife is as when one let it out water, the beginning of love is as when one kindles a fire. The eye tells more than the tongue, and if the eye and the tongue contradict each other, believe the eye. There is an indifference that attracts, and there is an indifference that repels. He is a sagacious man and she is a sagacious woman who will differentiate them. The question resolves itself into that which so often puzzles the angler, how much line to let out. About one thing there need be no hesitation, when your fish is within reach, be quick with the landing net or even with the gaff. In the matter of wooing, soon enough does the young girl learn to prefer the mature manners of the man of the world to the gosheries of the inexperienced youth. As to the man, how curious the things that appeal to this lord of creation man. A half averted face, a laughing gesture, a merry eye, an all but imperceptible tone of the voice, the scarce felt touch of a reluctant hand, a semi-tender phrase, an unexpected glance, another momentary pressure of petulant lips, a blanched cheek, a look prolonged one fractional part of a second beyond its won't, an infinitesimal drooping of the eyelid, a speaking silence, a half-caught sigh. These will entrap the male brute where green wits that were never dried will not hold him. But by what men are one most women seem thoroughly to comprehend. By what women are one few men know. Perhaps no woman knows by what she herself is one. One thing there is at all events to which woman will always succumb. Tenderness. But remember, dames, that tenderness is extremely difficult of simulation. Or rather, tenderness is so delicate and deep-seated a feeling that few care to attempt its simulation. A woman who gives herself too freely is apt to regret the giving. In time, too, she discovers that, as a matter of fact, no woman can give her real self twice. One or other gift will prove to be alone, and it is always and only the first recipient that causes a woman's heart to flutter, and often it flutters long. A second gift is generally a mortgage, if it is not a sale. A mortgage is difficult to bind, for there is a statute of limitations in love as there is in law. Law is the former to be set aside by bond. That pair is in a parlous state when either party discovers that the title was not properly searched, since everybody expects a fee simple, though few deserve it, God-what. Perhaps the most durable conquest is the incomplete one, which sounds illogical, but it is well to remember that repletion seems to cause in the man temporary indifference, while repletion causes in the woman enduring content. And in this we can detect a significant distinction between the sexes, namely the fact that a single goal satisfies most women. No single goal ever yet satisfied the restless spirit of man. What gives keenest joy is the evocation of latent passion, for each takes pleasure in believing that he or she alone can evoke this passion. Accordingly the premature confession of passion and the confession of premature passion both rankle in the breast, and probably in the breast of both penitent and confessor. What intensity of feeling a woman can throw into the enunciation of a Christian name? There is perhaps no better clue to possession than this, for probably not until a man's Christian name is ecstatically uttered is a woman wholly his. Men and women contend with the different weapons. This is why men are rarely intrepid in the presence of women, but women rarely stand in awe of men. Nothing differentiates the sexes more than this, but the psychological reason is difficult to discover. Perhaps the making of love is a sort of duel, the conditions of which are that the man shall doff all his armour, and the woman may don all hers. Indeed the battle of love-making would be an unequal combat, even were both contendents fully panopled, for a woman's derision will pierce any male. In fact, no armour is impervious to woman's shafts, be they those of laughter or be they those of love. So the various roue is vulnerable to the various maid. But for each man she meets a woman carries in her quiver but one shaft. If that misses its aim she is powerless. It is like a dart without a thong, when thrown the man can close. But always it devolves upon the man to take the initiative. But again always the man must pretend that he takes no initiative. But again always the woman must pretend that she gives no opportunity. The game of love is not only one of chance, but one of skill. What irks man is that a woman pretends that she must be circumvented by wiles. But man was ever a clumsy wooer. Nevertheless it is only the man who thinks he is too venturesome, since the iciest woman sometimes thaws. And the austere a woman the sweeter her surrender. And again a woman is never sweeter than in surrender. Accordingly de l'audace est encore de l'audace et toujours de l'audace. Dontant should be the motto of every wooer. Since audacity is beloved of women. But it must be an audacity born of sincerity and educated by discretion. At all events, beware, timidity, it is fatal. With women nothing is more conquering than conquest. Nothing so irresistible as resistance. On the other hand resistance on the part of the woman is an effort put forth for the purpose of defeating its own object. A man prizes only what he has thought for. No one knows this better than a woman. This is why a woman's capitulation she always makes to appear as a capture. And where there are no defence works a woman will erect them. Foolish that man who does not storm entrenchments. For resistance on the part of a woman is a wall which a man is expected to leap. His agility is the measure of her approbation. Arouse a woman's interest and do arouse much. But having failed, disappear. Yet it takes very many futile attempts to make a failure. At the same time, importunity is an inferior weapon. A conditional surrender is no surrender. But a woman's surrender is, in reality, a desertion, a going over to the enemy. Thenceforward she is an ally. Indeed, a woman's capitulation is her conquest. Let no amount of simulated austerity deter you. The marble galatier came to life at the prayer of a man. The number of modes in which a woman can say yes, has not, up to the present, been accurately enumerated. But perhaps the one most frequently enuses the negative imperative. And many other men who have puzzled long and painfully over the motives of a woman's no. Yet, in nine cases out of ten, a woman says no merely because she feels herself on the brink of saying yes. In other words, it is often mistrust of herself that leads many a woman to refuse with the lips the consent that is fluttering at her heart. Perhaps that is why, with woman, yay and nay are meaningless and interchangeable terms. Where a show of excessive feeling? It is proof either that it is shallow and evanescent, or that it is put on. At all events excessive feeling is rarely taken seriously. Now, seriousness adds a spice to gallantry, but like spice a little is ample. Many men think it is the woman who has to be persuaded. It is not the woman, it is her scruples. Besides, nemo repente torpissimos, well torpissima. Yet, by thirty, scruples are either dormant or dominant. Both of the callow youth of fifteen and the man of the world of forty-five swear by the woman of thirty. It may seem a paradox, but it is a truism that in matters of love it is the weaker and the defenceless sex that takes the initiative. In other words, the woman makes the opportunity which the man takes, and an opportunity missed is an opportunity lost. And the woman is implacable to the man who sees the opportunity and takes it not, since with woman indifference is worse than insult. Wherefore never, never disappoint a woman. Spontaneous admiration is the sincerest flattery. Those who know this affect spontaneity, but it requires much art to conceal this art. Women will often err upon the side of ultra delicacy in a compliment than upon the side of bare-facedness. Do not imagine that excessive admiration can give offence, but remember that the eye can better express admiration than can the tongue. The publicity with which a woman will receive admiration from a male admirer often is sufficient to astonish that admirer, but often enough it is the admiration not the admirer that a woman covers. Indeed, many a woman is in love with love, but not her lover. I seem to remember that somebody before has said something like this, before. But this no lover can be got to comprehend. To flatter by deprecating a rival is a compliment of extremely doubtful efficacy. A woman does not admire too clement a conqueror. She admits the right to evasion, and to him who waves it she likely regards. Seek no stepping-stones unless you mean to cross. He who gathers stepping-stones and refrains from crossing is contented of women. Indeed, every advance of which advantage is not taken is in reality a retreat. And remember too that those sought interviews are sweet, those un-sought are sweeter. And probably no son of Adam, and for the matter of that, probably no daughter of Eve, ever quite looks back with remorse upon a semi-innocent escapade. Yet the man who thinks he can at any time extract himself from any feminine entanglement that he may choose to have ravalled is a simpleton. The way of man with a maid may have been too wonderful for aga. Nowadays the way of a man with a married woman would puzzle a wiser than he. What is the attitude to be maintained towards the two complacent spouse of an honourable friend? That is a problem will puzzle weak men without end. Of that fatal and fateful dilemma when a wife or a husband falls victim to the wiles of another, there are, for the delinquent, two and only two horns, and it is a moot question upon which it is preferable to be impaled, flight, either from the victor or the victrix. Yet to some it is no anomaly to pray God's blessing upon a liaison. But these foe could be pitted for a clandestine love always works havoc, havoc to all three. C. F. Plautus malus clandestinus est amor damnum est merum. Will men and women never learn what trouble they lay up in store for themselves by breaking their plighted truths? CHAPTER VII. ON BEAUTY. Le bouté pour moi c'est la divinité visiblee. C'est le bonheur papable. C'est le ciel de s'endu sur terre. T'offe-le, côtiè. Beauty, they say, is but skin deep. That is quite deep enough to enslave mankind. As a matter of fact it is much deeper. For, to say nothing of health and good spirits, beneath true beauty lies an admirable or a lovable character. And yet, perhaps, and therefore, if by some mischance beauty should arouse our resentment, with what different eyes we regard it. The feeling for beauty is probably more highly developed in man than in woman. Note bene, perhaps this is the source of the beauty of women. Nevertheless it is a question that perhaps will never be settled, how much value should be placed on mere beauty. For men soon tires of mere beauty. In fact, men, the inconsistent creature, soon tires of mere anything. Beauty should never be analyzed, at the sight of a graceful neck, who speaks of musculus sternocleidio mastoidius, at the touch of moist red lips, who thinks upon the corpuscles of Pacini. More women are wooed for their complection than for their characters. Could women only know it? Nothing can add to their charms. How provokingly delightful is the uniform demureness of a hospital nurse beside the elaborate bedisements of a woman of fashion. The most beautiful thing known among men is a good woman. And this is not an anomaly. She who captures a man by a single charm, be it even beauty, holds him by a weak chain. Think not, it was merely beauty that made Helen, or Cleopatra, historic. Beauty is much, and grace is much, but there is a charm more subtle and potent than these. Beauty without modesty is a rose without perfume. The petals may delight, but they lack an ineffable savor. Like a flower too, though the tangible petals are numbered and compatible, the subtle perfume eludes the sense, and is inexhaustible. For modesty is the exhalation of the soul, at once it enhances as it refines the potency of beauty. Nay more, the sacrosanct aereol of modesty beautifies all its surrounds. Though with divine or haze imperfection there is none. So, given a red-lent mom and the loliest herb becomes treasured and precious, and each human soul has its own individual essence. What folly were the violet to envy the rose, since beauty is much, and grace is much, and mane and demeanor and wit, but a prepotent and psychic essence there is transcending the power of these. And, as the suave and subtle essence is not distinct from, but springs from, the tangible and numerable petals, so the spirit perceives that its fleshy vesture is not a thing apart, to be dawned and doft at will, to be contempt or left out of regards, but indeed an integral and inseparable portion of itself. For in the very woof and warp of flesh spirit is imminent and enmeshed. Indeed, though in a mystic sense, vesture and wearer are mutually one, and yet love ever assays the task of seeking out the psychic wearer beneath the corporeal vesture, often with plaintive strife. When seeker and sought make a mutual search, the starkest strife is condoned, but a lack, the mystic unity of the human soul is never wholly divulged, not even to love. Recorded by David Lawrence, in Brampton, Ontario, August 2009. A woman, really in love, and sure of her lover, delights in toying with a sort of coquetry of love, as if it pleased her to try to win over again that the winning of which gave soul exquisite a pleasure, and perhaps the coquetry of love is the surest test of an unquestionable love. For when possession can afford to play at pursuit, this but proves possession complete. Sometimes an assumed love will resort to the pretty tricks of a real one in order to assure its object, or to reassure itself. Surrender, after a protracted siege, has its advantages. At all events, both M and N can look back to more demi-semi-happy incidents when the courtship has been long. Happy that couple can laugh over the incidents of courtship afterwards. It is important of impending ill if they cannot. Half-heartedness in courtship is not only suicidal, it is murderous. On the other hand, remember that in courtship there are various and varying stages, but there is always the home gallop. Remember, too, that what is suitable at one stage of courtship is ruinous at another, and it is only the old whip who knows when to push the pace. In courtship, to force the running is hazardous. Though we win, the victory loses its sweets. And in courtship, men too often ride on the snaffle, in matrimony too often on the curb. Courtship asks for cash payment. Matrimony has often to allow unlimited credit, and solvency is not unknown. In courtship, all auxiliaries but the rival. No one will impede a lover save another lover. In the presence of a woman, man is by nature a definite animal. The women who recognize this are often the most successful. Indeed, many are the refined and gentle women who in after life regret that they did not openly cope with their less delicately minded sisters. Nevertheless, nothing is more astonishing than a woman's tact in encouraging a man. In courtship, modulated and musical tones count for much. Who, with harsh speech, can assail a lady's ear? No woman thinks she can be wooed too often, and few women can forgo an opportunity to fascinate. In courtship, the woman is the whole world to the man. In matrimony, the man is the whole world to the woman. In courtship, the slightest suspicion of condescension is fatal, for true love is a greater leveler than anarchy. In courtship, the wooer to the wooed is, in Juliet's phrase, the god of her idolatry. In matrimony, he is lucky if he is the idol of her deity. It is a question which is the sweeter, a spontaneous courtship or one that has sprung from friendship. In a spontaneous courtship, there is all the charm of novelty. In a courtship that has grown out of affection, there is all the truthfulness of friendship. But friendship and courtship are two totally distinct things. In courtship, men and women meet on the flowery thorny common of love. In friendship, men and women invite each other over to their respective plots, so a friend will show a friend all over his domain. A lover can but point out to the lover the flowers and thorns which grow in the soil to which they are both strangers. It is an open question whether in matters pre-matrimonial the mode of the French is not preferable to that of the Anglo-Saxon, whether that is prudence and provision are not more certain hair-bangers of matrimonial happiness than are impulse and passion. The French couple, when wedded, are virtually strangers. The Anglo-Saxon have already together enacted some scenes of the matrimonial drama, yet it is an open question also whether a more durable domestic affection is not built up from the pristine foundation of total ignorance than from that of a partial acquaintance ship. The American Elizabeth Peterson, before she became Madame Jerome Bonaparte, could write I love Jerome Bonaparte, and I prefer to be his wife, were it only for a day to the happiest union. The continentalized Madame Jerome Bonaparte, twenty-six years after she had ceased to be Miss Elizabeth Patterson, could write, do we not know how easily men and women free themselves from the fetters of love, and that only the stupid remain caught in these pretended bonds? After all, little do any couple know of each other before marriage. Besides, does a delightful romance envelop the nuptials of strangers? At all events, even if precaution is a foe to impulse, few will be found to deny that strangeness is by no means inimical to passion. Perhaps, then, fathers and mothers and uncles and aunts can form a better judgment as to the suitability and adaptability to each other of two young ardent and headstrong boys and girls can these themselves, since fathers and mothers and uncles and aunts know full well that impulse and passion often prove materials too friable for the many storied fabric of marriage. At all events, the French mode of contracting a marriage precludes the possibility of perilous and precocious affairs of the heart. Perhaps the mistake that ardent and headstrong boys and girls make is in thinking that impulse and passion are the keys of paradise. Their elders know that impulse and passion are sometimes the keys of purgatory. Prudence and provision are not keys to any supernal or infernal existence. They are merely guidebooks to a terrestrial journey. At all events it is significant that, which might be added as a lima, widows rarely choose unwisely. Over that much be thought of, much surmised about thing, a proposal of marriage, every young woman weaves a preconceived halo of romance, but in nineteen cases out of twenty a proposal is either unexpected or disappointing. That is, many a girl has almost held her breath with anxiety as she saw the great question coming, then almost cried with vexation at the way it came. For often, either the wrong man proposes or the right man proposes stupidly. The woman looks for ideal surroundings, a dramatic situation, and impassioned and poetic utterance. Usually the man seizes a commonplace opportunity and stutters. Probably the ideal proposal occurs only in novels. And yet, and yet, perhaps after all the real proposal is more complementary to woman than is the ideal. At least perhaps the aberration and obfuscation of the man is proof, once, one, of her potency and two, of his sincerity. Did man keep his head, and woman be quite so sure of his heart? Yet it may be that in these matters woman is liable to error, since rarely, if ever, does a woman's heart run away with her head. When it does, ah, the momentary bliss of unreasoning emotion. Yet, woman does right to keep her head. For almost every woman's happiness depends upon what she does with her heart. Unless indeed she elects to go through life homeless, childless, and unespoused. For though it is the wife that makes the home, it is the man who must provide for it. And since man, by nature, is probably nomadic and polygamic, not his to debate whether to give reign to emotion. Woman, by nature, is in far different case. For the sake of her child, woman must bind the nomad to herself. Accordingly, it is woman who is the true agglutinator and civiliser of society. Therefore it comes about that to order wisely her emotions is the inherited instinct of woman. Wherefore, woman is the conserver of the nation, and this in more senses than one. Men and Women There are two elements of character which a man should possess, develop, and maintain, unstained, if he would find favour in feminine eyes. The first is bravery. The second, indomitableness of resolution. So likewise, there are two elements of character which a woman should possess, develop, and maintain, unstained, if she would find favour in masculine eyes. The first is sympathy. The second, sweetness of temper. A curious and latent hostility divides the sexes. It seems as they could not approach each other without allurims and excursions. Always the presence of one rouses anxiety in the breast of the other. They stand to arms. They resort to tactics. They maneuver. And men and women approach each other, visorized and in armor. But it is often only to conceal the craven heart that beats beneath the brazen cure-ass. Men judge of women, not so much by their intrinsic worth as by the impression women make upon them. And women know this, since all women are alive to the fact that impressing, it is perhaps highly unfortunate that to this word is attached a twofold signification, of men is the important function of life. Accordingly, great stress is, and is naturally, laid by women upon dress and the subtleties of the toilet. For, in matters of the heart, man is led by the heart and not by the head. Though, as Mr. Grant Allen has endeavored to show, this is as scientific a method as any. And why not, since it is generally a sweetheart, not a hard head, that a man wants? In short, men are often are vanquished by a look than by logic, by a gracious smile than by good sense, by manner and even by dress than by mental development or depth. This is to say, a man judges a woman by her appearance, a woman judges a woman by her motives, and a woman judges of a woman's motives by what she knows of her own. So it comes about that, to a man, a woman's heart is something mysterious. But women, who know their own hearts, have little difficulty in reading others's. No units of measurement yet devised are adequate for the computation of the power wielded by a beautiful woman. That is a significant fact, and probably could we fan them all the profundities and unravel all the entanglements of the relations between the sexes as deep and as intricate as significant, that no woman thinks a man can pay her a higher compliment than to wish to make her his own. For though, woman thinks man her ultimate aim and desire, nature knows that man is but the stepping stone to the child. In the end, woman agrees with nature. We may go farther and say, women are near the eternal laws than our men. Men govern themselves by the laws they themselves make. Women are lawless. Laws are for the temporal, the fleeting, for a given individual in a given society, for a particular race in a particular climb. Such laws are obeyed by women only under compulsion. They, more far seen than men, instinctively peer far beyond the ephemeral rules manufactured by men into the realms of laws eternal and immutable. These she obeys implicitly, unquestioningly, much to man's amazement, and it may be his mortification. For he sees that she is freer than he. This is why, for the man she truly loves, a woman will sacrifice everything, everything. The same generous sentiment cannot by any means be attributed to man. Both the wise man and the wise woman, but here I am reminded of the recipe for hair soup. Between the sexes there is in reality but one link, the link amatory. And so long as nature maintains two sexes, so long will men and women hug, yet chafe under that slender but invisible bond. Not even cupid and psyche avoided a misunderstanding, in spite of the devotion of the other. And if men and women differ in manor's amatory, it is because men and women have trodden different evolutionary paths. The man, given up to the chase for peltz or pelf, and careful of his status in the tribe, thinks only of himself and the present. The woman, her soul care the nurture of her offspring, thinks only of her progeny and the future. But since the family is the unit of the state, therefore the state makes laws not for love but for the family. Happy that family the parents of which are bound by cosmic, not by municipal affection. Nevertheless, say what one will, love scoffs at laws. Howsoever marriage and divorce may be regulated by parliamentary statute. Man, as a member of a political community, may make marriage laws to suit that community, laws to suit that community, laws defenculo matrimony, and laws de mensa et thorough, decrees nissa prius and decrees absolute. But law can no more bind the affections than it can bind the sweet influences of the pleiades. And yet at bottom, beneath all municipal and parochial regulations, a great and cosmic law does govern the relations of the sexes, and the lightest whim of the lightest lady has a definite, perhaps a cosmic, font, and origin. A man can never know too much, perhaps a woman can. And it is a question how far a man admires a woman who knows too much. For, if there is nothing a man can teach a woman, not even of the ways of love, the man is apt to be chagrined. Besides, too much knowledge is inimical to romance. War is a man's true trade, love, woman's. There is no stronger argument against the equality of the sexes than a woman's hand. It was made to toil? No, to place in her lovers. In truth, is there anything more fragile in nature than a woman's hand? But put it in her lovers, and what a force it has. Anomaly of anomalies, with women, frugality, delicacy, dependence, beauty, grace. It is by these weak weapons that she wins. So, we watch a demir damsel of some sixteen sunny summers, much as we watch a delicate dynamo of some thousand kilowatts. Both seem so calm, so quesant. Yet both we know can generate such startling energy, can bring about such marvelous results. Many women forget that things which men have no objection to their female friends doing, they often have a very particular objection to their mothers, sisters, and wives doing. So, too, they often forget that it is not the girl he flatters, compliments, and is conspicuously attentive to that the man always marries. Perhaps this goes to show that there is a deeper and more serious current in the flow of male emotions, which, much as light and fitful breezes may stir the surface, is moved only by, and mingles only, with a similar and confluent stream. For it is not man's highest instincts that are stimulated by the more superficial, effeminate landishments, though no doubt many a man there is has been made permanently captive by their lore. The truth is that man is a many-sided creature, he will reflect many different rays, but it is only under the ray that pierces the surface and irradiates the interior that he truly glows. Woman does not lean upon man because she is inferior, but rather because she is his supporter, just as the buttress leans upon the building, but the building would fall without the buttress. That is, woman's dependence upon man is his chief source of strength. Those who cannot understand this may be left to their ignorance. It is not all women who comprehend the exultation of mind into which some men are thrown by their presence. Indeed, men put a higher value upon a woman's complacence than she does herself. To a woman, feminine concession appears trivial. Is it any wonder, then, that woman calls man's jealousy unreasonable? In reality, the affianced man thinks he has gotten him an angel from heaven. It is not within the bounds of mortal male comprehension that such an angel should sully her wings. Women know their sex, which, if it is a truism, is a truism that men often forget. And few things permit a man to see so far into the subtleties and intricacies of feminine hearts as a squabble between two of them over himself. A man in defeat generally turns to woman. A woman in defeat is either scornful, silent, or both. A man in depression falls back upon his only weapon, brute force. A woman, in like circumstances, does the same, but her weapon is personal charm. In matters amatory and material, a woman will risk more than will a man. In fact, in matters amatory and material, woman is the truly combative animal. Many are the members of the one sex that are entrapped by the wiles of the other. But it often happens that the entrapper afterwards rouse the capture as much as or even more than the entrapped. So it often happens that girls who are deliberately seeking husbands think love may be won by artifice. Not until well on in years do women know that, by men, love and artifice are considered mortal foes. To win him a wife by artifice would be to a man a thing impossible and important. Yet to win her a husband by artifice is to a woman a thing quite natural. But when, if ever, the man discovers that he has won by artifice, there are apt to be several bad quarters of an hour. For when all is said and done, the man, free and easy, thoughtless and untrammeled, knowing he may pick and choose, never chooses till, till, there comes the woman he thinks he wants. Then he says point blank he wants her. Should it ever be revealed to him that his want was the result of her artifice, a very different complexion is put upon that want. On the other hand, the woman, deprived of the power of choice, trampled by convention, bound to wait till asked for, quite naturally resorts to artifice. And yet, curiously enough, and a thing incomprehensible by man, a man whom a woman has won by sheer artifice she can love to the end of her life. But after all, what a refuge to man is work or play. Alas, woman has no refuge. So men cannot suffer long, women do. A man flies to work or sport or to the gaming table or to drink. A woman, he who can tell what a woman does in the sorrow of the soul, will tell us much. Some women in sorrow of soul eat out their hearts in silence. Other women in sorrow of soul will tell us much. Some women in sorrow of soul eat out their hearts in silence. Other women in sorrow of soul eat out the hearts of others, not in silence. But take attack a turn woman seriously. For always, attack a turn woman has suffered much. Attack a turn woman is a lonely one. And probably, it is only women who really know loneliness. Give a man a full meal and an outlet for his energy. He is fairly contented. For a man always has friends or a club. Women rarely have either. The most superb of physical charms are powerless unless fired by imagination. As the most destructive of explosives is harmless without a cap or a detonator. But, given a detonator, and the course's powder can work tremendous havoc. What precisely will bring a particular man to her feet? That is par excellence, the feminine problem. And many and various are the experiments by which she tries to resolve it. And, few are the men who learn that were won by experiment. For, man succumbs to his emotions. He cannot comprehend how it is that into feminine emotion calculation often enters. As there are two classes of warriors, so there are two classes of women. There is the warrior who conquers the world for sheer love of conquest. An Alexander, a Genghis Khan, an Attila, a Napoleon. And there is the warrior who captures a kingdom for the sake of possession. Such is your Norman William. So, there is the woman whom no conquest contends. Ahola Ba, Cleopatra, Masalini, Faustine. And there is the woman who is happy with a husband and home. Deborah, Vilna, Copernia, Mother of Gracchi. One thing from men women cannot abide. And this is a hostile and reasonable attitude. And naturally, since it is only man's reason, that is hostile to women. And when a man clothes himself with reason as with a garment, woman slinks away. And quite naturally, reason and emotion are mortal to a woman's cause. And it is on the field of emotion that the battle of love must be fought. For in the battle of love, the woman chooses and entrenched her position. The man has to act on the offensive. But only emotion can cope with emotion. Reason but beats the air. Wherefore, a wise man will neither oppose nor appeal to a woman through reason. Who can penetrate to the motives of a woman's coaxines? Yet not to be sure of a woman's coaxines. Not upon this side plug-a-thon is there a more poignant position. In loving one woman, a man believes in all women. And not till a woman is loved are her fingertips objects of devoutest worship. On the other hand, it cannot be said that in loving one man, a woman believes in all men. Which little distinction is proof, perhaps, that a woman's coaxines are not distinction is proof, perhaps, that love blinds the eyes of men but opens the eyes of women. In other words, passion obfuscates man's provision. It does not obfuscate a woman's. Man gives the reign to passion or air he knows wither it leads. A woman gives the reign to passion only after she has found out wither it leads. But when the goal is known, perhaps women are more implacable votaries of the implacable goddess than are men. That is to say, a woman keeps her head till she can give her heart. Then she gives it utterly. A man, perhaps because he has no heart, soon enough loses his head. So, before the gift, a woman's qualms exasperate the man. After the gift, the man's indifference exasperates the woman. It is folly to think that love and friendship exhaust the varieties of human relationships. The relationships between earthly souls are as complex and multi-form as those between heavenly bodies. In one thing does friendship excel love. It is always reciprocal. One friend presupposes another. Not so a lover. Friendship is largely a masculine sentiment, except among schoolgirls. The friendship that exists between a man and a woman should be called by another name. It cannot be holy platonic. I use the word in its purely conventional sense. It need not be holy, not to skew. Yet women generally strive to make it the one. And men often try to make it the other. And yet again how many women there be would, if they could, transmute love into friendship. That is to say, women regard a man's friendship as a delicate flattery to themselves. Yet they instinctively know, though they try hard to forget, that a man's friendship for a woman is extremely likely to transcend the bounds of friendship. If only friendship would keep within bounds. How many women deceive themselves into thinking that were devoutly to be wished. Yet probably as a matter of fact, the very woman who avers she regrets that her friendship is not mere platonic would resent the platonism did it exist. Possibly not every woman will understand this. Assurably no woman will admit it. And yet it is impossible to conjecture in what an exchange of confidences may terminate. It may be a kiss, or it may be a quarrel. But confidences are evoked rather by friendship than by love. A woman will tell a man friend what she will not tell a lover. Few lovers will understand this. Fewer still will believe it. Yet it is true and the explication of its truth will be long and complex. This much may be said. Love idolizes. Friendship does not. At the same time love probes the innermost recesses of the womanly nature. And until the woman is wholly one, the woman resents the inspection of love. She knows that to stimulate love the woman must conceal, not reveal. Furthermore, never was there a man who could be at once friend and lover. Which is only one more proof that never will the sexes understand each other. The male was ever the more susceptible sex. And for this reason, next to sympathy, flattery is perhaps woman's most effective weapon. And no masculine shield there is which woman's flattery will not pierce. For man, man alert in the hunt, keen in business, circumspect with his fellows, terrible in war, man is pristine and simple in manners emotional, and an easy prey to emotional wiles. In the long journey of evolution from amoeba to man the masculine sex has developed muscle in mind, the feminine sex developed and perfected the emotions. Accordingly, man's emotions are the primitive weapons of a savage. Woman's emotions are arms of precision. Yet sometimes woman deplores the unequal contest. Perhaps woman deplores her too easy victory. Since in domestic life the weapons are laid aside, the pair are then presumably unarmed and defenseless. For though a mat has to be won by weapons, marriage should be a treaty of peace. Therefore the combatants are allies. Many a man, when ensnared, has been amazed at the size of the meshes. Only a woman knows by what open methods wandering men are. He who by reasoning thinks to find out woman must either be a philosopher or a fool, probably both. Less of a philosopher and more of a fool is he who thinks to extract from woman her reasons for her actions. The woman who can give reasons for an action is yet to be born. The reason is plain. Women act upon intuition, not upon reason. And he who can make a logical source out of feminine intuitions could make a philosophical system out of nautical almanacs. And yet probably could we only determine her orbit, a woman's intuitions are as exact as the paths of the planets. Unfortunately such are the perturbations to which a woman's orbit is exposed that no masculine astronomy can construct its ephemeris. Halak, how many anxious stargazers are there among men? The orbit of the ordinary male man it is not as difficult for a woman to compute. Inasmuch as the ordinary male man revolves unusually about two foci, his appetites and his ambitions, which is the major and which is the minor. However, you may trust women to know when he is in Perry and when in Ephelion. Many a spouse has no difficulty in explaining away to her lord actions about the character of which even his initiate friends have no shadow of doubt. For a woman's perception is preternatural. But no, it is natural enough. Since from the days of the first woman to the days of the new one, love, its wiles and its whims, has been the serious business of woman. Women know much better than men that stolen is sweetest. In consequence, men steal almost everything they get from women. At least they think they do, which is the same thing. If the sexes were to change places, more marriage licenses would be taken out. Frailty says man, thy name is woman, and then he takes advantage of it. At arm's length it is difficult to offer a helping hand, yet it is hazardous to reduce that distance. Neglect is the unpardonable sin in a woman's eyes. Woe to the man who is guilty of it. If a woman possessed only a man's tact, what fallings out there would be? Man's sumum bonum is to combine a comfortable home with congenial club. Woman's sumum bonum is the almost equally incompatible combination of a well-regulated family and the height of fashionable gaiety. Man's infinum malum is domestic distraction. Woman's infinum malum is social exile. Between man and man, to lay another under pecuniary obligation is to jeopardize friendship. Between man and woman, a like cause brings about an opposite result. The man with something of the feminine about him often knows better than his more masculine rivals how to work upon feminine susceptibilities. Most women know how much to leave to a man's imagination, but then man has not much imagination. Besides, man's imagination is always highly complementary to woman. Affinity covereth a multitude of sins. To attract sometimes requires temporary repulsion, but some women miscalculate their satellite's orbit with the result that either it rushes on to certain destruction or it passes beyond the limits of gravitation. The woman to one man is no more than the substratum of frock and bonnet is to another man the center of gravity of the created cosmos. When she is in such center to more than one man her horoscope is difficult to cast. When one heart lays siege to another, both sides throw up entrenchments and this even when both belligerents are ready to negotiate for surrender. But never, never show that you expect escalation and flank movements are not to be recommended. In conversation the last thing a woman expects from a man is information, unless it be information concerning himself. In fact, talk is a mere subterfuge. It is what is left unsaid that tells. Nevertheless, when once the trough has been plighted, both M and N try to utter what has been left unsaid, but always within different success. A lack and well a day can love ever say what it feels. It is difficult to say to which sex it is greater compliment that widows always prove such successful fascinators. Either they still have a penchant for mankind despite their intimate acquaintance with him, in which case the men may congratulate themselves, or else they have so completely found men out that they find no difficulty in entraping them, in which case it is the women's turn to applaud. When our feelings are unwittingly hurt by a beautiful woman, the pain is largely tempered by a subtle pleasure, which proceeds from a feeling that, in as much as we have been undeservedly pained, we merit her sympathy, perhaps even her affection. Women seek not so much man's esteem as his admiration. In fact, women would rather attract than inspire. Indeed, by him who cared, it might be added that women would rather be kissed than be sonneted, which is mighty lucky for the majority of men. The most interesting man or woman is, well, perhaps the one most interested in us. The least interesting man or woman is, well, perhaps the one most interested in him or herself. Never fear but that one woman will urge your suit with another, unless, of course, that other is a rival. For matchmaking is one of the most fascinating of feminine avocations. When a woman allows it to be understood that she considers herself irresistible to the other sex, she draws upon herself the odium of her own. By the other sex, however, such a woman is very differently regarded. Indeed, men regard the avowed coquette, not at all with malice, but with a very opposite feeling, of which perhaps amusement, admiration, and a certain amicable defiance are the chief ingredients. It is only mountains that are volcanic or are snow-capped. The planes know nothing of extremes of frigidity or fire. To the woman whom he has ceased to love, the man is sometimes unconsciously cruel. Towards the man whom she has ceased to love, the woman commonly acts apart. For a woman to humiliate one man in the presence of another is an offense which neither of the men is likely to forget, nor will the one man have a less unpleasant recollection of it than the other. It is curious to listen to the explanations by one woman of the reasons of the attractiveness of another woman. Very apt is she to say that the other woman is too free and easy, too liberal of her favors, too expansive of her sympathy, too exhibitive of her charms. Ahem. Women know women, and women know that women know men, and women know that men do not know women. Ahem. Men, in this respect, are somewhat different. A man usually regards not ungenerously the qualities of his successful rival, a woman never. The former will candidly admit the possession of a more potent charm. The latter will trace it to the crudest of causes. In a word, the unsuccessful man blames not his rival, nor the woman he loses, but himself. The unsuccessful woman blames never herself, but either the outrageous meritisticness of her rival or the blindness of the man she loses. From which it may once more be deduced that men are one by more primitive means than are women. And alas for men, alas also for many women, the majority of men are so blind, so abominably blind, that they cannot distinguish the women who are really in love with them, from the women who pretend to be in love with them, but are not. For because so complete do women know men, that it is easy for any woman to delude any man. This is one of the reasons why every woman is the rival of every other woman. This woman will be herself, her own true simple and virtuous self, or resort to no subterfuge, adopt no merititious methods, scorn to rely upon tactics or strategy be ever reserved, reluctant, shy, yet fail. This other woman will openly and blatantly, overtly and unconcernedly, assail the masculine heart with word and look and gesture, and win. Ah! The per blindness of the masculine heart, though it exasperates even the woman. The man has sunk low who cannot recognize and respect the remnant of sex even in a degraded woman. Woman can persuade themselves and men far more easily than can a man of the propriety of their actions. Man is powerless before an injured woman. He has no more dangerous foe than this. It is the man who seeks excuses. The woman braves it out. Kokutri is love's lady's maid. She is accessory and ancillary to love. She bedesons love. She tricks her out in gay apparel. When love's lord and master enters, my lady's maid is dismissed. It might be as well sometimes to recall her. And nudity oust Kokutri. Chastity is a word with as many shades of meaning as there are peoples. Perhaps as there are individuals upon the face of this habitable world. Women think chastity is a virtue primarily insisted upon and enforced by men. They mistake. It is a virtue primarily insisted upon and enforced by women. For when that divine, unique thing love comes to a woman, if she not be chased, it is she who deplores the fact. The man may easily enough be deceived. Or a woman can never deceive. Besides, with what righteous indignation women themselves visit chastity. Between sexes, resentment is the worst of defensive weapons. In the hands of a man it is like a cow hide shield opposed to master bullets. In the hands of a woman like a parasol on a cloudy day. Since woman penetrates resentment by ridicule, man treats it with dull indifference. And a snub from a woman is never forgotten. And for two reasons. Because A. the lord of creation hates to be floored by the jujitsu of feminine rivalry. And because B. the last thing a man expects from a ministering angel is mundane mockery. Besides, deliberate derision murders not only affection but admiration. A blush needs no apologies. Why? Because always a blush is spontaneous, uncontrollable, and if there is any one thing a man likes to see it is a spontaneous and uncontrollable action in woman. When the man has declared himself hers and hers alone as given proof of the truth of such declaration has bound the woman to himself by terms dictated by herself then but not till then the woman acts spontaneously and without control then she blushes. But seek not impulsive masculine lover to explore too many of the mysteries of this thy feminine help meet. Perchant she feels herself so much above thee that she blushes to give the herself. Perchant she regards thee so much a symbol of the godlike that she blushes for because she is not more worthy. But far more probably she blushes for because she betrays to thee a mortal, and cosmic secret. For there is a divine and cosmic secret hidden beneath every blush. Ah, man, man. Perchant impulsive, passionate man. Little knowest thou of the divine and cosmic secret that underlies love. To thee, O man, it may be. It is a momentary flash that irradiates the world and reveals for a moment a sky above that world. To thee, O woman, it is the reverberating thunder that echoing rolls forever after unceasing in thy ears. Is this why, between a man and a woman, a single look will sometimes change the complexion of an intimacy of a lifetime? And not until that look comes, not until eyes look into eyes with a penetration supernatural is acquaintanceship, minimorphost, into love. It is a favorite fiction amongst women that a rejected either will not marry or marries the first girl he meets. Because to marry another woman after having offered an alienable and unalterable fidelity to one would otherwise be a blow to a more prepared. And yet, strangely enough, or perhaps not so strangely, this is a fiction but rarely maintained with regard to her own cardiac transportations. And for this reason, woman is, and knows herself to be, a multiple personality. Man, a tyro in emotions, is cast in a simpler mold. So a woman may donate herself piecemeal, or over and over again, yet deem herself perfectly loyal, and perhaps naturally and legitimately, for that man who will comprehend and appreciate all the intricacies of feminine emotion, but there is no such being existent. Indeed, even self-revelation is a task no daughter of Eve has achieved. To sum up, between men and women, the consummation of love is a bodily oblation, the outcome of spiritual obsession. Must I explain this? No, I shall not. Suffice it to say that the heavenly Aphrodite is true friend to the earthly. So nothing offends love, since love finds in all its savers of the mortal only a symbol and epitome of the supernatural. And there is in love a cosmic force and secret incomprehensible and communicable by man. Is not, after all, love the one supreme and significant fact of the cosmos? Indelible, indecipherable, efflorescing in man, emerging from the material, idolizing the carnal, pointing to an inscrutable, a spiritual goal? Can it be that, if we could explain love, we should explain the cosmos? What if we could explain why it is that no one single isolated portion of the cosmos can live alone and want itself in itself sufficient? But must seek some other single and isolated portion of the cosmos in order that that very cosmos shall continue, shall evolve, shall go towards its goal. Do we put our finger here upon some curious and recondite cosmic fact? Artily transcending our mean comprehension. Where jealousy, as you would wear wire, for no psychiatrist has yet discovered a balm. To make an experiment of jealousy is to make a very hazardous experiment indeed. Jealousy is no proof of love, for often jealousy is but rancor under a sense of humiliation. Indeed, jealousy is a sign of weakness. The lover whose self-confidence assures him of his preeminence fears no rival. Yet male self-confidence is peculiarly vulnerable where women are concerned. Since, as no man knows what it is appeals to a woman, he does not know on what to pride himself. Even an athelo is jealous of even an aego. Yet it is only the spectators who see the folly of athelo. Desdemonas usually are helpless as they are oblivious. The illicitly favored lover is never jealous of the husband, but of another illicitly favored lover how jealous he is. But jealousy, like modesty and like virtue, varies with every time and climb. What is customary in Cairo would rouse consternation in Kent, and what goes on in Vienna shocks New England. So how the husband favored lover differs also with every time and climb. There he is multed in damages, there he is shot down, in a third place he is tolerated. How the woman thinks her husband should treat the illicitly favored lover that you shall never find out. The edicity of jealousy is unappeasable. A wronged lover in his pain looks for more pain to bear, like a martyr in an ecstasy he cries out for further tortures. In love one always sees higher unreachable depths. In jealousy always deeper unreachable depths. And there is no wound but leaves its circuitrics. Mistrust an unexpected change of front. So does your erstwhile frowning lady smile? Cherchilim or la femme Since to arouse jealousy in another feminine breast is sometimes the motive of feminine complacence. Indeed few women can forgo an opportunity of arousing jealousy, either in a feminine or in a masculine breast. Be think thee of this little fact, old man, when next thy lady comports herself the wards ultra-graciously. To see the girl of thy heart, even if so be she not thine, nor not nearly thine, comport herself with another as she does with thee, ah, that gives a twinge to the masculine heart. Nay, lesser things than this will perturb this irascible organ that the other should admire her charms, that she should accept such admiration. Yet what cares she that this discomfort a man, for a man's discomforture is not to a woman. In soothe take a woman to task for her conduct, and with how soft an answer she will turn away your wrath, how deftly make light of your rival's advances. Man, when he has won him a woman, is, in his great greed of possession, infinitely chagrin that he was not master of her past as of her present and future. This goes by the name of la jealousy retrospective. Women never know quite how to regard a man's jealousy. It flatters her, yet it pains her. She is the cause of it, yet she would believe it causeless. She deplores it, yet she would not have it quite away. It is proof of love, yet it is fatal to love. How to treat it puzzles her. Implicit obedience to the man's wishes lowers her in her own eyes, and consequently so she thinks in his. Yet so rabid is the emotion she fears to provoke it too far. It places her in a quandary. She never knows what will evoke it. She never knows what course it will run, whether it will cement her lover's affections, or whether it will dissipate them forever. It is love's most dangerous foe, and it is dangerous because it is insidious. If there is any one thing that puts a woman's wits to the test, it is a man's jealousy. The shearest and most insensitive folly a man can commit towards a woman is to let her know that another woman is cognizant of her jealousy of her. He may give the latter a very keen pleasure, but he gives the former a very keen pang. For the cause of jealousy a woman may condone. The divulgence of her jealousy will never forgive. What irritates a jealous man is the actions that cause his jealousy. What irritates a jealous woman is the person who is the cause of her jealousy. In other words, a jealous swain upbraids his mistress. A jealous mistress objugates her rival. CHAPTER 11 ON KISSES AND KISSING CHAPTER 12 HINE Many are the varieties of kisses, as many probably as a variety of kisses, as many probably as a variety of lips and of the owners thereof. And a kiss may mean so very much, or so very little. A kiss is an open door, look not upon the lips when they are red. For although a kiss is a small thing, so is a spark. And always, though, a smile is an open window. A kiss is an open door. Strange, strange, that from the momentary contact of lip with lip and infinitesimal surface of epithelial tissue there can be called up from the depths of the soul, emotions strange as deep, emotions vague and thrilling, those lips are themselves all powerless. And when to the conjoined lips there is added the bliss of an upturned eye and embracing arms. Ah, well a day. There are eatens for us still if only we will eat not of the forbidden fruit. The value of a kiss is determined by the personage on whom it is bestowed, not by the from whom it is besought. Which, if it needs any explanation, means this, that it is the man who ardently desires the kiss that puts the value upon that kiss, not the woman of whom it is desired. Yet women know that, as with commodities, so with kisses, the greater the rarity the greater the veil. Osculatory transactions there be as lasting in their results as transient in their causes. A cheek surreptitiously brushed in the dark is preferable to lips permittedly pressed by day. What an extraordinary multiplicity of maneuvers a man will perform for just one kiss. But with the precise numerical equivalent of the expression just one kiss, algebra has not yet been found quite able to grapple. It is believed, however, to belong to permutations and combinations. There is a very decided, but wholly indefinable line of deracation between the kissed and the unkissed woman. In other words, the status quo anti-oxoculus genome can never be re-established. Hitherto the kisses may have been friends, henceforward they may be, they may be. But who shall say to what kissing may lead besides much more kissing than is supposed goes by purchase than by favor, all which probably will be Greek to the uninitiated. Nevertheless, and at all times and in all places, a kiss is like faith, the evidence of things not seen, the substance of things hoped for. How appallingly immensity of the results due to the munudist of causes, a burning city from a lighted match, a life-long tragedy from a stolen kiss. In truth, fate is often another name for folly, a woman who is afraid of a kiss knows much. Amongst other things, perhaps, that kisses like misfortunes rarely come singly and bear many things in their train. Despite the varieties of beards and moustachios, never will you hear the musculatrix, the source of her knowledge of that variety. If by any chance the divulgence leaks out, how the girl bashoos the moustchance, for though the man may hold his peace, she knows that she gives him to think. It takes two to make a quarrel, yes, and it takes two to make the reconciliating kiss. CHAPTER XII. ON ENGAGEMENTS AND ON BEING ENGAGED. CHALAPAN TO MAY FILASAY CHALAPAN TO KAY FILASAY ANACRION Perhaps the pleasantest and most satisfactory period in a girl's life is the time of her first youthful engagement. Never is a girl more jubilant, never more buoyant, never so charming, so blightsome, or so debonair as when she is the gazetted about to be bride of the man of her girlish choice. For during her engagement a girl is owned and petted, and ownership and petting are dear to women, whether young or old. Ownership is proof at all events that she is of value to the man, else the man would not sought to make her his. And petting is proof that the man properly appreciates the value. Yet meanwhile, anomalous as it may sound, the engaged girl is still her own property and is practically free. Besides, what more delectable to a girl than to have captured and kept a real man? This flatters her, uplifts her, makes of her a woman at once. She holds her head higher, she carries herself with an air, she shows off her capture. Besides also, the engaged girl is looked up to by her peers, is congratulated by her elders. Even if she keeps the engagement secret, these compiers and congratulatresses do not, sometimes alas to her detriment. In addition to all this, what delight so unique as the preparation of the trousseau? Trousseau, it is a name of mystical import to man. A woman's trousseau is symbol of two things, and perhaps dimly indicative of a third. One, it proves, what needs no proof, that such is the unselfish nature of love. Never can it give enough, never enhance too much the gifts it gives. Accordingly, the bride goes to the man, apparelled and bedecked to the best of her ability. Two, it is a subtle tribute to the sensibility of man, of the man in love, who is stimulated and pleased by dainty, it may be diaphanous, raiment. Lastly, since even that supernal thing, love, is not much practical. Three, it bespeaks a prophetic suspicion of the little fact that perhaps it is well to go to her husband's home abundantly provided with dainty raiment, and as much as the man, not in love, is not always so delicately sensible of their need. A girl's first engagement is peculiarly sweet. Long does she remember, long meditatively dwell upon its pettiest incidents. Four, if any man dared give utterance to so outrageous an assumption, the emolience of a promise to marry are as sweet to the donatress as undoubtedly they are to the acceptor. And why not, pray? Nevertheless, a certain practical sobriety supervenes upon subsequent affairs of the heart. For the recurrence of love is apt to spoil its romance. And yet, and yet, it is a question which woman after woman has put herself. In vain, whether it would have been wiser to have accepted and retained the romantic love of unthinking youth, or to have waited for the more sober affection of the years of discretion. Perhaps a girl hardly knows all that is meant by that thing called love, or what is entailed upon her by that thing called an engagement. She has played with love so much that when a real and serious love is offered her, she still thinks it the toy that amused her. But soon enough does the man, if he is in earnest, and a man never proposes unless he is in earnest, enlighten the girl of his choice. For to a man, love is never a toy, though mere lust may be. Men never play with love as do girls. They play with lust as they play with bats and balls and firearms. When men fall in love, they fall in love with a vengeance. And the seriousness with which the man falls in love startles the girl. The man demands so much, is so exacting, so pre-emptatory, so unyielding, so frightfully selfish, so terribly jealous of the slightest look, or smile or gesture bestowed upon any other than he, that the girl, well, the girl probably begins to think, either that the man is an unreasonable brute, or that her girlish notions of love are somewhat astray. Then one of two things happens. Either the man goes off in a huff, or the girl mends her ways. The recurrence of love is a great shock to love. Love thinks itself a thing unique, unalterable, supreme, a thing not made out of the flux and chains of earthly affairs, but heaven-born and descended from the skies, that it should go and come to destroy the fundamental conception of love. The affianced man thinks he has won him the sweetest, the most sacrosanct thing that ever tried God's earth outside of Eden, a bundle of blisses, a compact little mass of exquisite mysteries, whose every tint and curve and motion are to him sources of wonderment and delight. He is at once humbled and exalted. He thanks high heaven for the gift. He looks into his heart and finds whether he can comport himself worthy of such gift. For that this wondrous and mysterious little thing called a woman should of her own accord put herself in his arms, to be by him and by him alone cherished and nurtured till death them do part. This indeed gives the male heart a very sobering, a very ennobling thrill. For beneath the heaving breast he so passionately loves, behind the eyes into the depths of which he so passionately looks, there stirs he knows that ineffable, that indefinable thing, a woman's heart. And that to him has been committed the keeping of that heart. This rouses in him the manly virtues as no other thing rouses them. Strong is the man who can live up to these emotions. Sage the woman who knows what she has aroused. The philanderer or the flirt to whom love-making and love-taking have been a past time is appalled at the seriousness of love when real love is offered him or her. For often enough the philanderer or the flirt thinks compliments and cajolery the food of love. In time they discover that love is a veritable sarcophagus. Many an accepted lover, both masculine and feminine, tries to make up for coldness of passion by warmness of affection, a subterfuge of dubious delicacy. For though affection seeks affection, passion is only appeased by passion. Yet when one loves passionately and the other languidly accepts, it is well perhaps for that other sometimes to be a little unfaithful to the truth and to simulate an unfelt ardure. But always this is of questionable value, for love abhors simulation of anything, even of ardor. If mutual confidence is not established at the moment of betrothal, it will never afterwards be established, and woeful be the plight of those between whom mutual confidence is not then established, for mutual confidence is the only atmosphere in which love can breathe. An engaged man, like a hungry man, is an irascible man. And how often a fiancé is sore-put to it, not only to satisfy him, but to pacify him. A woman will often blandly ask why the two rivals to her hand should not be friends, yet it is significant of much that she does her utmost to keep them apart. Indeed, in no instance are a woman's tack and finesse so exercised as in plain off one man against another. And yet usually she delights in a task. For being made love to is to women what killing, whether of men or of animals, is to men. In a word, to be sought after is to woman what war or the chase is to man. The moment a woman accepts a man, then and there he becomes her lord and master. And this she unconsciously knows, nay, expects. If the man does not then and there exercise his lordship and show his mastery, he will find it difficult to do it later on. But of course, no woman will ever begot to admit that her newly one man is her master. Nevertheless, it is counseled that every man should lay to heart. For, unless a woman is dominated, and be not dominated over, she tries to get the upper hand. And only two instances there are in which the woman should retain the upper hand, when the man is either a philosopher or a fool. When a man is both, and the combination is not uncommon, she would be a fool if she did not retain the upper hand. But little does a woman esteem him, who does not sway, nay, who does not sacrifice it may be, her to his will. Of that engaged pair, who can confidingly speak the one to the other, of the dawn of their mutual attraction, little need be feared. If they cannot, very much may be feared. For love, without confidence, is as defunct as faith without works. For, if M cannot confide in N, it probably means that K and L have, or that O and P will. So tremendous are the results of the gift of self, that nature herself seems to have ordained that the feminine sacrifice shall be utter and complete. For a man's interests may be many and diverse. The chase, the combat, the adventure, the struggle of life, and woman has but one, her family. And only through the woman is the man bound to the family. And since the family is ultimately dependent upon the man, the importance a woman attaches to the binding potency of her charms is as natural and legitimate as it is utilitarian and beneficial. Many more women, and perhaps also many more men, are entrapped into an engagement than would be willing to avow yet every girl thinks that given the chance, she can get any man. But few girls go to the trouble of thinking whether they can keep the man when got. Yet, how to keep the man she has got, this gives many an engaged girl food for thought. Many a woman has set her cap at a man from peak at the detractions of arrival. But how she has rooted. But indeed, how many engagements are brought about by anything rather than love? How engagements come about no man or woman shall tell. They are more inconsequent, more lawless, than the wind which bloweth where it listeth. Sometimes a girl who has failed to get or to keep the man she wanted in a rage or in a huff or to show that she does not want for lovers or in sheer desperation will engage herself again on the shortest noticed and on the shallowest grounds. Sometimes a girl will engage herself to a man simply because another and rival girl was wanting that said man. Sometimes a shy man and a reserved maid will eat out their hearts with longing. When low and behold, a bold girl will appear and carry off the shy man, perhaps to the lifelong chagrin and sorrow of all three. Often a hue, how often an awkward and unsophisticated youth and a prim maid with downcast eyes will sit together, bals together, and the one never get one inch the nearer to the other, though soul and mind and body crave a closer union. The youth would give the solid earth. Nay, the solid earth would be as not to gain him the courage to clasp the maiden to his breast. Yet so intense his awe, he would not strain a spider's web to risk the maid's goodwill. The maid, who shall say what passes in her mind? That the youth should adventure she could wish, yet his very hesitancy bespeaks his devotion true. Were he to fall about her neck, embrace her close, and demand the kiss of love, most like she would recoil aghast, at first. Yet if he desisted she would also recoil aghast. What should he do for awkward youth? What she? One thing onlookers will do, smile and simper and smile again. But in their inmost heart of hearts they will envy that awkward youth that simple maid. For because, in this, the first symptoms of unsolicited and reciprocal love, they will recognize something of the divine and mystical nature of love itself. Of love untrammeled by convention or law. Of love itself, in its purity, its intensity, its defiance, its terrifying, yet restraining force. Ah, love, not in every conflict art thou victor crowned.