Hints for Lovers Part 7

As every new variety of fas.h.i.+on in dress seems becoming to women, so, it is probable, every variety of fas.h.i.+on in manners will become them also.

But probably

The phrase the "New Woman" is not unlike the phrase the "New Chemistry": the materials are the same; what is new is the nomenclature.

(3) A phrase (and not much more than a phrase) much in vogue in Europe and America in the last two decades of the nineteenth century of the area known as Christian.

A woman's peccadilloes are generally worse than a man's. At all events they are more reprobated.

Abashment intensifies a woman's love for him so making her abashed. And

There is a shame that is sweeter than joy. (As

There is a fear more tremulous than delight.) For

Mastery is a woman's standard of man. And There is an element of the freest and frankest savagery in the most refined and spiritual of women. (How otherwise

Can any one explain the extraordinary fable of Selene and Pan?(4) --And man?

--But that man was ever a savage. It may be added that

The defenselessness of woman is a conventional fiction: she can avert an attack by a look; she can terminate a siege by a taunt.

(4) Though Browning tried. See "Dramatic Idyls", "Pan and Luna"

Solomon has objurgated the invincibly garrulous woman. The invincibly taciturn woman is so rare as to have escaped objurgation. Yet she too is a terror to men.

Every woman is suspicious and jealous of any woman that opens a man's eyes; even though she knows that

Never was there a woman who could and would deliberately wholly enlighten a man.

And, yet, marvelous and curious amongst things curious and marvelous, will but a woman fling artifice to the winds, and look and act and say as great Nature prompts,--wildly, willfully, wantonly,--that woman will captivate as no feminine wiles will ever captivate.

If the man were worth it, many a woman would dispense with the marriage ceremony. For

Ah! Love--love--love,--given love, what else is needed? (Unfortunately

Love can never be sure of itself--much less of anything else.

Accordingly

The marriage contract is a device on the part of the community to provide for the preservation of the home: it makes the parties promise fidelity.) But

Precious few are the men who are worth the risking. Unfortunately,

More women succ.u.mb to strength of will than to strength of character.

Neither, in general, are women overcurious to enquire whether the strength of character.

Neither, in general, are women over curious to enquire whether the strength of the masculine will makes for good or for evil.

So long as the masculine will overmaster the feminine, the feminine mind is satisfied. Of course there are exceptions, but as a rule,

Women--whether young or old, married or single, strong-minded or weak-- are never happier than when they can depend on a man. Accordingly,

The lover or the husband who is weaker than, and depends upon, the woman, will some day rue his weakness and dependence. And yet,

To see a strong male at her feet--that is exquisite to the woman. So exquisite that

It is with difficulty that a woman refrains from exhibiting a man's servitude to others. On the other hand,

There is an element of intimidation in a resplendent woman. And of this she is aware.--Hence perhaps her power.

A woman will attain her ends by adroit finesse, where a man would blunder into open hostility. And

It is well that man should blind his eyes to feminine wiles, since,

Always a woman kindly pretends oblivion of masculine blunders.

The woman whose tastes and refinements are above her station, is in pitiable plight: she is too fastidious to espouse the men who would marry her; the men she would marry she rarely meets. For, The only thing that, to love, is insupportable is vulgarity. Since

Love, romantic love, the efflorescence and bloom of life, is besmirched unless tenderly touched.

To generalize pa.s.ses the wit of woman; but in penetration she is preternatural.

What fascinates a woman is the man who unwittingly attracts her against her will. But such a man rouses a combination of emotions comprehensible only by women.

A woman's answer to an insuperable argument is: a look. And a most cogent answer it is. Indeed,

Speech is a woman's least effective weapon; rarely if ever does she resort to it: