Her Royal Highness Woman Part 23

A loving woman will keep her heart warm as long as she lives, and her hair black as long as she dyes.

Woman is an instrument given to man for his happiness and his delight.

If the instrument gets neglected, out of tune, and broken, man should blame himself alone. Ninety-nine times out of a hundred, the instrument is right enough; it only wants to be in good and careful keeping.

There are only two places in the world where a beautiful woman, fas.h.i.+onably dressed, can walk comfortably without being stared at by the women like a Barnum's freak out for an airing--Paris and New York, and perhaps Bond Street, London, during the season. Everywhere else she has to ride or hide. There is only one spot of the earth where such a woman can go about in all freedom and security without running the risk of being followed and otherwise annoyed by idle men, and that is Fifth Avenue, New York.

In matrimony, to retain happiness and make it last to the end, it is not a question for a woman to remain beautiful, it is a question for her to remain interesting. Not the slightest detail should be beneath her notice in order to keep alive the attention of her husband.

Love feeds on illusions, lives on trifles. If a man loves his wife, a rose on her head, her hair parted the other way, a newly-trimmed bonnet, may revive in him the interest he felt the first time he met her, nay, the emotion he felt the first time he held her in his arms.

The very best dishes may become insipid if served with the eternally same sauce.

There comes a time when a woman has to make up her mind to choose between being called a 'dear old soul' or a 'crabby old thing.'

I love and admire the woman of forty who admits that she is ten years older than her daughter, the woman of fifty who is proud to show me her grandchildren, and does not object to being photographed with them, and the woman of sixty who does not expect me to admire her shoulders at a dinner-party.

Painting, music, and women are often admired or criticised by plucky people who are not afraid of exhibiting their ignorance.

Women are born mothers or sweethearts. When they marry, they become mother-wives and take their children into first consideration, or sweetheart-wives, and bestow their best care and attentions on their husbands. But for the former ones, many clubs would have to put up their shutters.

A woman who is constantly blus.h.i.+ng must be terribly well informed.

As long as it is man who proposes, matrimony will be promotion for a woman.

The woman taken in adultery was formerly burned or stoned to death; later on she was condemned to three months' imprisonment. Nowadays she goes scot-free, and her husband is turned into ridicule. What more does she want?--the Victoria Cross or the Legion of Honour?

There is no _esprit de corps_ among women.

America is the only country where you hear women speak well of their s.e.x. It speaks volumes for them, and it enables American men to be polite and even gallant, and do the same.

Woman is made to love and to be loved. She may live on love and die of it. For a man, love is the occupation of a few moments; for a woman, love is the occupation of a lifetime.

If a man hears men speak ill of women, he should, before joining in the chorus, remember his mother. Then he will be sure to take their defence.

Women should have two great aims in life: trying to be beautiful and succeeding in being pleasant.

Whether I think of woman as a grandmother, a mother, a wife, a sweetheart, or even a little girl who, by-and-by, will bear all these t.i.tles in succession, I believe that men ought to spend most of their spare time in strewing with flowers the ground upon which a woman is about to tread.

There are men who complain that roses have thorns. They should be grateful to know that thorns have roses.

The roses of life are the women.

THE END