Chapter II: Part 2

But the day soon comes when the pretty play is over and the soft eyes widen with fear. She passes the dividing line between childhood and womanhood when she first realises that her pastime and her dream have forged chains around her inmost soul. This, then, is what life holds for her; it is ecstasy or torture, and for this very thing she was made.

Some man exists whom she will follow to the end of the world, right royally if she may, but on her knees if she must. The burning sands of the desert will be as soft grass if he walks beside her, his voice will make her forget her thirst, and his touch upon her arm will change her weariness into peace.

When he beckons she must answer. When he says "come," she must not stay. She must be all things to him--friend, comrade, sweetheart, wife. When the infinite meaning of her dream slowly dawns upon her, is it strange that she trembles and grows pale?

Soon or late it comes to all. Sometimes there is terror at the sudden meeting and Love often comes in the guise of a friend. But always, it brings joy which is sorrow, and pain which is happiness--gladness which is never content.

A woman wants a man to love her in the way she loves him; a man wants a woman to love him in the way he loves her, and because the thing is impossible, neither is satisfied.

[Sidenote: The Strongest Passion]

Man's emotion is far stronger than woman's. His feeling, when it is deep, is a force which a woman may but dimly understand. The strongest passion of a man's life is his love for his sweetheart; woman's greatest love is lavished upon her child.

"One is the lover and one is the loved." Sometimes the positions are reversed, to the misery of all concerned, but normally, man is the lover. He wins love by pleading for it, and there is no way by which a woman may more surely lose it, for while woman's pity is closely akin to Love, man's pity is a poor relation who wears Love's cast-off clothes.

There are two other ways in which a woman loses her lover. One is by marrying him and the other by retaining him as her friend. If she can keep him as her friend, she never believes in his love, and husbands and lovers are often two very different possessions.

A man's heart is an office desk, wherein tender episodes are pigeon-holed for future reference. If he is too busy to look them over, they are carried off later in Father Time's junk-wagon, like other and more profane history.

All the isolated loves of a woman's life are woven into a single continuous fabric. Love itself is the thing she needs and the man who offers it seldom matters much. Man loves and worships woman, but woman loves love. Were it not so, there would be no actor's photograph upon the matinée girl's dressing-table, and no bit of tender verse would be fastened to her cushion with a hat pin, while she herself was fancy free.

[Sidenote: Gift and Giver]

All her life long she confuses the gift with the giver, and loving with the pride of being loved, because her love is responsive rather than original.

[Sidenote: The Forgotten Harp]

She demands that the lover's devotion shall continue after marriage; that every look shall be tender and every word adoring. Failing this, she knows that love is dead. She is inevitably disappointed in marriage, because she is no longer his fear, intoxication, and pain, but rather his comrade and friend. The vibrant strings, struck from silence and dreams to a sounding chord, are trembling still--whispering lingering music to him who has forgotten the harp.

When a woman once tells a man she loves him, he regards it as some chemical process which has taken place in her heart and he never considers the possibility of change. He is little concerned as to its expression, for he knows it is there. On the contrary, it is only by expression that a woman ever feels certain of a man's love.

Doubt is the essential and constant quality of her nature, when once she loves. She continually demands new proof and new devotion, consoling herself sometimes with the thought that three days ago he said he loved her and there has been no discord since.

As for him, if his comfort is assured, he never thinks to question her, for men are as blind as Love. If she seems glad to see him and is not distinctly unpleasant, she may even be a little preoccupied without arousing suspicion. A man likes to feel that he is loved and a woman likes to be told.

The use of any faculty exhausts it. The ear, deafened by a cannon, is incapable for the moment of hearing the human voice. The eyes, momentarily blinded by the full glare of the sun, miss the delicate shades of violet and sapphire in the smoke from a wood fire. We soon become accustomed to condiments and perfume, and the same law applies to sentiment and emotion.

[Sidenote: The Lover's Devotion]

Thus it seems to women that men love spasmodically--that the lover's devotion is a series of unrelated acts based upon momentary impulse, rather than a steady purpose. They forget that the heart may need more rest than the interval between beats.

[Sidenote: Attraction and Repulsion]

If a man and woman who truly loved each other were cast away upon a desert island, he would tire of her long before she wearied of him. The sequence of attraction and repulsion, the ultimate balance of positive and negative, are familiar electrical phenomena. Is it unreasonable to suppose that the supreme form of attraction is governed by the same law?

Strong attractions frequently begin with strong repulsions, sometimes mutual, but more often on the part of the attracting force. A man seldom develops a violent and inexplicable hatred for a woman and later finds that it has unaccountably changed to love.

Yet a woman often marries a man she has sincerely hated, and the explanation is simple enough, perhaps, for a woman never hates a man unless he is in some sense her master. Love and hate are kindred passions with a woman and the depth of the one is the possible measure of the other.

She is wise who fully understands her weapon of coquetry. She will send her lover from her at the moment his love is strongest, and he will often seek her in vain. She will be parsimonious with her letters and caresses and thus keep her attraction at its height. If he is forever unsatisfied, he will always be her lover, for satiety must precede repulsion.

No woman need fear the effect of absence upon the man who honestly loves her. The needle of the compass, regardless of intervening seas, points forever toward the north. Pitiful indeed is she who fails to be a magnet and blindly becomes a chain.

The age has brought with it woman's desire for equality, at least in the matter of love. She wishes to be as free to seek a man as he is to seek her--to love him as freely and frankly as he does her. Why should she withhold her lips after her heart has surrendered? Why should she keep the pretence of coyness long after she has been won?

[Sidenote: The Old, Old Law]

Far beneath the tinsel of our restless age lies the old, old law, and she who scorns it does so at the peril of all she holds most dear. Legislation may at times be disobeyed, but never law, for the breaking brings swift punishment of its own.

Too often a generous-hearted woman makes the mistake of full revelation. She wishes him to understand her every deed, her every thought. Nothing is left to his imagination--the innermost corners of her heart are laid bare. Given the woman and the circumstances, he would infallibly know her action. This is why the husbands of the "practical," the "methodical," and the "reasonable" women may be tender and devoted, but are never lovers after marriage.

If Alexander had been a woman, he would not have sighed for more worlds to conquer--woman asks but one. If his world had been a clever woman he would have had no time for alien planets, because a man will never lose his interest in a woman while his conquest is incomplete.

The woman who is most tenderly loved and whose husband is still her lover, carefully conceals from him the fact that she is fully won. There is always something he has yet to gain.

[Sidenote: A Carmen at Heart]

After ten years of marriage, if the old relation remains the same, it is because she is a Carmen at heart. She is alluring, tempting, cajoling and scorning in the same breath; at once tender and commanding, inspiring both love and fear, baffling and eluding even while she is leading him on.

She gives him veiled hints of her real personality, but he never penetrates her mask. Could he see for an instant into the secret depths of her soul, he would understand that her concealment and her coquetry, her mystery and her charm, are nothing but her love, playing a desperate game against Time and man's nature, for the dear stake of his own.

Dumas draws a fine distinction when he says: "A man may have two passions but never two loves: whoever has loved twice has never loved at all." If this is true, the dividing line is so exceedingly fine that it is beyond woman's understanding, and it may be surmised that even man does not fully realise it until he is old and grey.

[Sidenote: The Cords of Memory]

Yet somewhere, in every man's heart, is hidden a woman's face. To that inner chamber no other image ever finds its way. The cords of memory which hold it are strong as steel and as tender as the heart-fibre of which they are made.

There is no time in his life when those eyes would not thrill him and those lips make him tremble--no hour when the sound of that voice would not summon him like a trumpet-call.

No loyalty or allegiance is powerful enough to smother it within his own heart, in spite of the conditions to which he may outwardly conform. Other passions may temporarily hide it even from his own sight, yet in reality it is supreme, from the day of its birth to the door of his grave.

He may be happily married, as the world counts happiness, and She may be dead--but never forgotten. No real love or hate is wrought upon by Lethe. The thousand dreams of her will send his blood in passionate flow and the thousand memories of her whiten his face with pain. Friendship is intermittent and passion forgets, but man's single love is eternal.

Because woman's love is responsive, it never dies. Her love of love is everlasting. Some threads in the fabric she has woven are like shining silver; others are sombre, broken, and stained with tears. When a man has once taught a woman to believe his love is true, she is already, though unconsciously, won.

All the beauty in woman's life is forever associated with her love. Violets bring the memory of dead days, when the boy-lover brought them to her in fragrant heaps. Some women say man's love is selfish, but there is no one among them who has ever been loved by a boy.

[Sidenote: Some Lost Song]

Broken, hesitant chords set some lost song to singing in her heart. The break in her lover's voice is like another, long ago. Summer days and summer fields, silver streams, and clouds of apple blossoms set against the turquoise sky, bring back the Mays of childhood and all the childish dreams.

This is another thing a man cannot understand--that every little tenderness of his wakes the memory of all past tenderness, and for that very reason is often doubly sweet. This is the explanation of sudden sadness, of the swift succession of moods, and of lips, shut on sobs, that sometimes quiver beneath his own.

Woman keeps alive the old ideals. Were it not for her eager efforts, chivalry would have died long ago. King Arthur's Court is said to be a myth, and Lancelot and Guenevere were only dreams, but the knightly spirit still lives in man's love for woman.

[Sidenote: The Lady of the Court]

The Lady of the Court was wont to send her knight into danger at her sweet, capricious will. Her glove upon his helmet, her scarf upon his arm, her colours on his shield--were they worth the risk of horse and spear? Yet the little that she gave him, made him invincible in the field.

To-day there is a subtle change. She is loved as dearly as was Guenevere, but she gives him neither scarf nor glove. Her love in his heart is truly his shield and his colours are the white of her soul.

He needs no gage but her belief, and having that, it is a trust only a coward will betray. The battle is still to the strong, but just as surely her knight comes back with his shield untarnished, his colours unstained, and his heart aglow with love of her who gave him courage.

The centuries have brought new striving, which the Lady of the Court could never know. The daughter of to-day endeavours to be worthy of the knightly worship--to be royal in her heart and queenly in her giving; to be the exquisitely womanly woman he sees behind her faulty clay, so that if the veil of illusion he has woven around her should ever fall away, the reality might be even fairer than his dream.

Through the sombre pages of history the knights and ladies move, as though woven in the magic web of the Lady of Shalott. Tournament and shield and spear, the Round Table and Camelot, have taken on the mystery of fables and dreams.

[Sidenote: By Grace of Magic]

Yet, by the grace of magic, the sweet old story lives to-day, unforgotten, because of its single motive. Elaine still dies for love of Lancelot, Isolde urges Tristram to new proofs of devotion, and Guenevere, the beautiful, still shares King Arthur's throne. For chivalry is not dead--- it only sleeps--and the nobleness and valour of that far-off time are ever at the service of her who has found her knight.

The Lost Art of Courtship

The Lost Art of Courtship

[Sidenote: Liberty of Choice]

Civilisation is so acutely developed at present that the old meaning of courtship is completely lost. None of the phenomena which precede a proposal would be deemed singular or out of place in a platonic friendship. This state of affairs gives a man every advantage and all possible liberty of choice.

Our grandparents are scandalised at modern methods. "Girls never did so," in the distant years when those dear people were young. If a young man called on grandmother once a week, and she approved of him and his prospects, she began on her household linen, without waiting for the momentous question.

Judging by the fiction of the period and by the delightful tales of old New England, which read like fairy stories to this generation, the courtships of those days were too leisurely to be very interesting. Ten-year engagements did not seem to be unusual, and it was not considered a social mistake if a man suddenly disappeared for four or five years, without the formality of mentioning his destination to the young woman who expected to marry him.

[Sidenote: Faithful Maidens]

We have all read of the faithful maidens who kept on weaving stores of fine linen and making regular pilgrimages for the letter which did not come. Years afterward, when the man finally appeared, it was all right, and the wedding went on just the same, even though in the meantime the recreant knight had married and been bereaved.

Two or three homeless children were sometimes brought cheerfully into the story, and assisted materially in the continuation of the interrupted courtship. The tears which the modern spinster sheds over such a tale are not at the pathos of the situation, but because it is possible, even in fiction, for a woman to be so destitute of spirit.

[Sidenote: Without Saying a Word]

"In dem days," as Uncle Remus would say, any attention whatever meant business. Small courtesies which are without significance now were fraught with momentous import then. In this year of grace, among all races except our own, there are ways in which a man may definitely commit himself without saying a word.

A flower or a serenade is almost equivalent to a proposal in sunny Spain. A "walking-out" period of six months is much in vogue in other parts of Europe, but the daughter of the Anglo-Saxon has no such guide to a man's intentions.

Among certain savage tribes, if a man is in love with a girl and wishes to marry her, he drags her around his tent by the hair or administers a severe beating. It may be surmised that these attentions are not altogether pleasant, but she has the advantage of knowing what the man means.

Flowers are a pretty courtesy and nothing more. The kindly thought which prompts them may be as transient as their bloom. Three or four men serenade girls on summer nights because they love to hear themselves sing. Books, and music, and sweets, which convention decrees are the only proper gifts for the unattached, may be sent to any girl, without affecting her indifference to furniture advertisements and January sales of linen.

If there is any actual courtship at the present time, the girl does just as much of it as the man. Her dainty remembrances at holiday time have little more meaning than the trifles a man bestows upon her, though the gift latitude accorded her is much wider in scope.

[Sidenote: Furniture]

When a girl gives a man furniture, she usually intends to marry him, but often merely succeeds in making things interesting for the girl who does it in spite of her. The newly-married woman attends to the personal belongings of her happy possessor with the celerity which is taught in classes for "First Aid to the Injured."

One by one, the cherished souvenirs of his bachelor days disappear. Pictures painted by rival fair ones go to adorn the servant's room, through gradual retirement backward. Rare china is mysteriously broken. Sofa cushions never "harmonise with the tone of the room," and the covers have to be changed. It takes time, but usually by the first anniversary of a man's marriage, his penates have been nobly weeded out, and the things he has left are of his wife's choosing, generously purchased with his own money.

Woe to the girl who gives a man a scarf-pin! When the bride returns the initial call, that scarf-pin adds conspicuously to her adornment. The calm appropriation makes the giver grind her teeth--- and the bride knows it.

In the man's presence, the keeper of his heart and conscience will say, sweetly: "Oh, my dear, such a dreadful thing has happened! That exquisitely embroidered scarf you made for Tom's chiffonier is utterly ruined! The colours ran the first time it was washed. You have no idea how I feel about it--it was such a beautiful thing!"

The wretched donor of the scarf attempts consolation by saying that it doesn't matter. It never was intended for Tom, but as every stitch in it was taken while he was with her, he insisted that he must have it as a souvenir of that happy summer. She adds that it was carefully washed before it was given to him, that she has never known that kind of silk to fade, and that something must have been done to it to make the colours run.

[Sidenote: A Pitched Battle]

The short-sighted man at this juncture felicitates himself because the two are getting on so well together. He never realises that a pitched battle has occurred under his very nose, and that the honours are about even.

If Tom possesses a particularly unfortunate flash-light photograph of the girl, the bride joyfully frames it and puts it on the mantel where all may see. If the original of the caricature remonstrates, the happy wife sweetly temporises and insists that it remain, because "Tom is so fond of it," and says, "it looks just like her."

Devious indeed are the paths of woman. She far excels the "Heathen Chinee" in his famous specialty of "ways that are dark and tricks that are vain."

Courtship is a game that a girl has to play without knowing the trump. The only way she ever succeeds at it is by playing to an imaginary trump of her own, which may be either open, disarming friendliness, or simple indifference.

When a man finds the way to a woman's heart a boulevard, he has taken the wrong road. When his path is easy and his burden light, it is time for him to doubt. When his progress seems like making a new way to the Klondike, he needs only to keep his courage and go on.

For, after all, it is woman who decides. A clever girl may usually marry any man she sees fit to honour with the responsibility of her bills. The ardent lover counts for considerably less than he is wont to suppose.

[Sidenote: The Only One They Know]

There is a good old scheme which the world of lovers has unanimously adopted, in order to find out where they stand. It is so simple as to make one weep, but it is the only one they know. This consists of an intentional absence, judiciously timed.

Suppose a man has been spending three or four evenings a week with the same girl, for a period of two or three months. Flowers, books, and chocolates have occasionally appeared, as well as invitations to the theatre. The man has been fed out of the chafing-dish, and also with accidental cake, for men are as fond of sugar as women, though they are ashamed to admit it.

Suddenly, without warning, the man misses an evening, then another, then another. Two weeks go by, and still no man. The neighbours and the family begin to ask questions of a personal nature.

It is at this stage that the immature and childish woman will write the man a note, expressing regret for his long absence, and trusting that nothing may interfere with their "pleasant friendship." Sometimes the note brings the man back immediately and sometimes it doesn't. He very seldom condescends to make an explanation. If he does, it is merely a casual allusion to "business." This is the only excuse even a bright man can think of.

[Sidenote: "Climbing a Tree"]

This act is technically known among girls as "climbing a tree." When a man does it, he wants a girl to bring a ladder and a lunch and plead with him to come down and be happy, but doing as he wishes is no way to attract a man up a tree.

Men are as impervious to tears and pleadings as a good mackintosh to mist, but at the touch of indifference, they melt like wax. So when her quondam lover attempts metaphorical athletics, the wise girl smiles and withdraws into her shell.

She takes care that he shall not see her unless he comes to her. She draws the shades the moment the lamps are lighted. If he happens to pass the house in the evening, he may think she is out, or that she has company--it is all the same to her. She arranges various evenings with girl friends and gets books from the library. This is known as "provisioning the citadel for a siege."

[Sidenote: Pride and Pride]

It is a contest between pride and pride which occurs in every courtship, and the girl usually wins. True lovers are as certain to return as Bo-Peep's flock or a systematically deported cat. Shame-faced, but surely, the man comes back.

Various laboratory note-books yield the same result. A single entry indicates the general trend of the affair.

_MAN calls on GIRL after five weeks of unexplained absence. She asks no questions, but keeps the conversation impersonal, even after he shows symptoms of wishing to change its character._

MAN. (_Finally._) "I haven't seen you for an awfully long time."

GIRL. "Haven't you? Now that I think of it, it has been some time."

MAN. "How long has it been, I wonder?"

GIRL. "I haven't the least idea. Ten days or two weeks, I guess."

MAN. (_Hastily._) "Oh no, it's been much longer than that. Let's see, it's"--(_makes great effort with memory_)--"why, it's five weeks! Five weeks and three days! Don't you remember?"

GIRL. "I hadn't thought of it. It doesn't seem that long. How time does fly, doesn't it!" (_Long silence._)

MAN. "I've been awfully busy. I wanted to come over, but I just couldn't."

GIRL. "I've been very busy, too." (_Voluminous detail of her affairs follows, entirely pleasant in character._)

MAN. (_Tenderly._) "Were you so busy you didn't miss me?"

GIRL. "Why, I can't say I missed you, exactly, but I always thought of you pleasantly."

MAN. "Did you think of me often?"

GIRL. (_Laughing._) "I didn't keep any record of it. Do you want me to cut a notch in the handle of my parasol every time I think of you? If all my friends were so exacting, I'd have time for nothing else. I'd need a new one every week and the house would be full of shavings. All my fingers would be cut, too."

MAN. (_Unconsciously showing his hand._) "I thought you'd write me a note."

[Sidenote: His Short Suit]

GIRL. (_Leading his short suit._) "You could have waited on your front steps till the garbage man took you away, and I wouldn't have written you any note."

MAN. (_With evident sincerity._) "That's no dream! I could do just that!" (_Proposal follows in due course, MAN making full and complete confession._)

If he is foolish enough to complicate his game with another girl, he loses much more than he gains, for he lowers the whole affair to the level of a flirtation, and destroys any belief the girl may have had in him. He also forces her to do the same thing, in self-defence. Flirtation is the only game in which it is advisable and popular to trump one's partner's ace.

He who would win a woman must challenge her admiration, prove himself worthy of her regard, appeal to her sympathy--and then wound her. She is never wholly his until she realises that he has the power to make her miserable as well as to make her happy, and that love is an infinite capacity for suffering.

A man who does it consciously is apt to overdo it, out of sheer enthusiasm, and if a girl suspects that it is done intentionally, the hurt loses its sting and changes her love to bitterness. A succession of attempts is also useless, for a man never hurts a woman twice in exactly the same way. When he has run the range of possible stabs, she is out of his reach--unless she is his wife.

[Sidenote: A State Secret]

The intentional absence scheme is too transparent to succeed, and temporary devotion to another girl is definite damage to his cause, for it indicates fickleness and instability. There is only one way by which a man may discover his true position without asking any questions, and that is--a state secret. Now and then a man strikes it by accident, but nobody ever tells--even brothers or platonic friends.

Some men select a wife as they would a horse, paying due attention to appearance, gait, disposition, age, teeth, and grooming. High spirits and a little wildness are rather desirable than otherwise, if both are young. Men who have had many horses or many wives and have grown old with both, have a slight inclination toward sedate ways and domestic traits.

[Sidenote: The "Woman's Column"]

Modern society makes it fully as easy to choose the one as the other. In communities where the chaperone idea is at its prosperous zenith, a man may see a girl under nearly all circumstances. The men who conduct the "Woman's Column" in many pleasing journals are still writing of the effect it has on a man to catch a girl in curl papers of a morning, though curl papers have been obsolete for many and many a moon.

Cycling, golf, and kindred out-door amusements have been the death of careless morning attire. Uncorseted woman is unhappy woman, and the girl of whom the versatile journalist writes died long ago. Perhaps it is because a newspaper man can write anything at four minutes' notice and do it well, that the press fairly reeks with "advice to women."

The question, propounded in a newspaper column, "What Kind of a Girl Does a Man Like Best," will bring out a voluminous symposium which adds materially to the gaiety of the nation. It would be only fair to have this sort of thing temporarily reversed--to tell men how to make home happy for their wives and how to keep a woman's love, after it has once been given.

Some clever newspaper woman might win everlasting laurels for herself if she would contribute to this much neglected branch of human knowledge. How is a man to know that a shirt-front which looks like a railroad map diverts one's mind from his instructive remarks? How is he to know that a cane is a nuisance when he fares forth with a girl? It is true that sisters might possibly attempt this, but the modern sister is heavily overworked at present and it is not kind to suggest an addition to her cares.

[Sidenote: Neglected By His Kind]

There is no advice of any sort given to men except on the single subject of choosing a wife. This is to be found only in the books in the Sabbath-School library, or in occasional columns of the limited number of saffron dailies which illuminate the age. Surely, man has been neglected by his kind!

[Sidenote: Indecision]

The general masculine attitude indicates widespread belief in the promise, "Ask, and ye shall receive." A man will tell his best friend that he doesn't know whether to marry a certain girl. If she hears of his indecision there is trouble ahead, if he finally decides in the affirmative, and it is quite possible that he may not marry her.

After the door of a woman's heart has once swung on its silent hinges, a man thinks he can prop it open with a brick and go away and leave it. A storm is apt to displace the brick, however--and there is a heavy spring on the door. Woe to the masculine finger that is in the way!

A man often hesitates between two young women and asks his friends which he shall marry. Custom has permitted the courtship of both and neither has the right to feel aggrieved, because it is exceedingly bad form for a girl to love a man before he has asked her to.

Now and then a third girl is a man's confidante at this trying period. Nothing so bores a person as to be a man's "guide, philosopher and friend" in his perplexities with other girls. To one distinct class of women men tell their troubles and the other class sees that they have plenty to tell. It is better to be in the second category than in the first.

Sooner or later, the confidante explains the whole affair to the subjects of the confidence and strange, new kinds of trouble immediately come to the rash man. It is a common failing to expect another person to keep a secret which we have just proved is beyond our own capability.

[Sidenote: The Adamantine Fortress]

When a man has once deeply wounded a woman's pride, he may just as well give up his hope of winning her. At that barrier, the little blind god may plead in vain. Love's face may be sad, his big, sightless eyes soft with tears, and his helpless hands outstretched in pleading and prayer, but that stern sentinel will never yield. Wounded love is easily forgiven, wounded belief sometimes forgotten, but wounded pride--never. It is the adamantine fortress. There is only one path which leads to the house of forgiveness--that of understanding, and it is impassable if woman's pride has come between.

A girl never knows whether a courtship is in progress or not, unless a man tells her. He may be interested and amused, but not in love. It is only in the comic papers that a stern parent waits upon the continuous caller and demands to know his "intentions," so a girl must, perforce, be her own guide.

[Sidenote: The Continuous Caller]

A man may call upon a girl so constantly and so regularly that the neighbours daily expect wedding invitations, and the family inquire why he does not have his trunk sent to the house. Later, quite casually, he will announce his engagement to a girl who is somewhere else. This fiancée is always a peculiarly broad-minded girl who knows all about her lover's attentions to the other and does not in the least object. She wants him to "have a good time" when he is away from her, and he is naturally anxious to please her. He wants the other girl to know his wife--he is sure they will be good friends.

Lasting feminine friendships are not built upon foundations of that kind. It is very unfortunate, for the world would be gladdened by many more than now exist.

According to geometry, "things which are equal to the same thing are equal to each other," and it would seem, from the standpoint of pure reason, that people who are fond of the same people would naturally be congenial and take pleasure in being together.

But a sensitive spinster is often grieved when she discovers that her men friends do not readily assimilate. If she leaves two of them to entertain each other, the conversation does not flow with desirable spontaneity. There is no lack of courtesy between them, however, even of that finer sort which keeps them both there, lest one, by leaving, should seem to remind his companion that it was late.

On the contrary, if a man is fond of two different girls, they are seldom to be seen apart. They exchange long visits regularly and this thoughtfulness often saves him from making an extra call.

[Sidenote: A Happy Triumvirate]

A happy triumvirate is thus formed and the claws of it do not show. Sometimes it is hard to decide between them, and he cuts the Gordian knot by marrying someone else, but the friendship is never the same afterward. The girls are no longer boon companions and when the man crosses their paths, they manage to convey the impression of great distance.

[Sidenote: Narrowed Down to Two]

In the beginning, almost any number may join in the game, but the inevitable process of selection eventually narrows it down to two. Society has given men a little the best of it, but perhaps woman's finer sight compensates her for the apparent disadvantages--and even Love, who deals the cards, is too blind to see the fatal consequences of his mistakes.

The Natural History of Proposals

The Natural History of Proposals

[Sidenote: The Inquiring Spinster]

There is no subject which presents more difficulties to the inquiring spinster. Contemporary spinsters, when approached upon the topic, are anything but encouraging; apparently lacking the ability to distinguish between impertinent intrusion into their personal affairs and the scientific spirit which prompts the collection of statistics.

Married women, when asked to repeat the exact language of the lover at the happy moment, are wont to transfix the sensitive aspirant for knowledge with lofty scorn. Mothers are accustomed to dissemble and say they "have forgotten." Men in general are uncommunicative, though occasionally some rare soul will expand under the influence of food and freely give more valuable information than can be extracted from an indefinite number of women.

One's own experience is naturally limited, even though proposals constitute the main joy and excitement of the spinster's monotonous life. Emerson says: "All is sour if seen as experience," though the gentle sage was not referring especially to offers of marriage. Nevertheless, there is a charm about other people's affairs which would render life beautiful indeed if it could be added to one's own.

Nothing strengthens a woman's self-confidence like a proposal. One is a wonder, two a superfluity, and three an epidemic. Four are proof of unusual charm, five go to the head, and it is a rare girl whom six or seven will not permanently spoil.

[Sidenote: Disillusion]

To the girl fed upon fiction, the first proposal comes in the nature of a shock. Disillusion follows as a matter of course. Men, evidently, do not read fiction, or at least do not profit by the valuable hints to be found in any novel.

A small book entitled: _How Men Propose_, was eagerly sought by young women who were awaiting definite experience. This was discovered to be a collection of proposals carefully selected from fiction. It was done with care and discernment, but was not satisfying. The natural inference was that the actual affairs were just like those in the book.

[Sidenote: "In Books?"]

Nothing can exceed the grace and tenderness with which men propose--in books. Such chivalrous worship, such pleasing deference is accorded--in books! Such pretty pleading, such knightly vows of eternal allegiance, as are always found--in books!

The hero of a few years back was wont to make his offer on his knees. He also haunted the home of the beloved maiden, deeming himself well repaid for five hours wait if he had a fleeting glimpse of her at the window. Torn hair was frequent, and refusal drove men to suicide and madness.

The young women who were the cause of all this trouble were never more than eighteen or twenty years of age. Mature spinsters of twenty-five figured as envious deterrents in the happy affair. Many a story-book marriage has been spoiled by the jealousy of the wrinkled rival of twenty-five.

[Sidenote: The First Proposal]

The violent protestations of the lover in the novel were indeed something to be awaited with fear and trembling. With her anticipations aroused by this kind of reading and her eagerness whetted by interminable years of waiting, Mademoiselle receives her first offer of marriage.

She is in doubt, at first, as to whether it is a proposal. It seems like some dreadful mistake. Where is the courtly manner of the lover in the book? What is the matter with this red-faced boy? Where is the pretty pleading, the gracious speech? Why should a lover stammer and confuse his verbs?

Mademoiselle recoils in disgust. This, then, is what she has been waiting for. It is not at all like the book. Her lover is entirely different from other girls' lovers--so different that he is pathetic.

Her faith in the gospel of romance is sadly shaken, when the next experience is a great deal like the first. No one, in the book, could doubt the lover's meaning. Yet in the halting sentences and confused metaphors of actual experience, there is sometimes much question as to what he really means. A girl often has to ask a man if he has just proposed to her, that she may accept or refuse, in a gracious and proper way.

[Sidenote: The Ordeal]

In a girl's early ideas on the subject, she has much sympathy for the man who has to undergo the ordeal of asking a woman to be his wife. She thinks he must contemplate the momentous step for weeks, await the opportunity with expectant terror, and when his lady is in a happy mood, recite with fear and trembling, the proposal which he has written out and learned, appropriately enough, by heart.

Later, she comes to know that after the first few times, men propose as thoughtlessly and easily as they dress for dinner, that they devote no particular study to the art, that constant practice makes them proficient, and that almost any girl will do when the proposal mood is on.

She discovers that they often do it simply to make a pleasing impression upon a girl, with no thought of acceptance. Many an engagement is more of a surprise to the man than to anybody else.

Because fiction comes very near to the heart of woman, she invariably follows its dictates and shows great astonishment at every proposal. The women who have been thus surprised are even more rare than days in June.

[Sidenote: The False and the True]

When a man begins to compare a girl to a flower, a baby, or a kitten, she knows what is coming next. She spends her mental energy in distinguishing the false from the true--which is sufficient employment for anyone. There is not enough cerebral tissue to waste much of it upon unnecessary processes.

It is very hard to tell whether a man really means a proposal. It may have been made under romantic circumstances, or because he was lonesome for the other girl, or, in the case of an heiress, because he was tired of work. Longing for the absent sweetheart will frequently cause a man to become engaged to someone near by, because, though absence may make a woman's heart grow fonder, it is presence that plays the mischief with a man. No wise girl would accept a man who proposed by moonlight or just after a meal. The dear things aren't themselves then.

Food, properly served, will attract a proposal at almost any time, especially if it is known that the pleasing viands were of the girl's own making. Cooking and love may seem at first glance to be widely separated, but no woman can have one without the other. The brotherly love for all creation, which emanates from the well-fed man, overflows, concentrates, and naturally becomes a proposal.

[Sidenote: Written Proposals]

Other things being equal, a written proposal is apt to be genuine, especially if it is signed with the full name and address of the writer, and the date is not omitted. Long and painful experience in the courts of his country has made man wary of direct evidence.

But a written proposal is extremely bad form. A girl never can be sure that her lover did not attempt to fish it out of the letter-box after it had slipped from his fingers. The author of _How to Be Happy, Though Married_, once saw a miserable young man attempting to get his convicting letter back by means of a forked stick. The sight must be quite common everywhere. Proposing in haste and repenting at leisure is not by any means unusual.

Then, too, a girl misses a possible opportunity of seeing a man blush and stammer. One does not often get a chance to see a man willingly making himself ridiculous, and the spectacle is worth waiting for.

[Sidenote: Confusion and Awkwardness]

Confusion and awkwardness are high trumps with a woman, for they indicate inexperience and uncertainty. The man who proposes in a finished and nonchalant manner, as if he had done it frequently and were sure of the result, is now and then astonished at a refusal. It is also a risk to offer a ring immediately after acceptance. The suspicion is that the ring has been worn before, or else the man was sure enough of the girl to invest heavily in his future.

Sometimes a man will disclose to a platonic friend the form he habitually employs in proposals. The hero of battle engagements has proverbial charm for woman, and the hero of matrimonial engagements is meat and drink to the spinster athirst for knowledge.

Feed the man, and when the brotherly love for the entire universe begins to radiate, approach him gently upon the subject.

"Why, bless your little heart," the man will say, "of course I'll tell you about it. Yes, you're right in supposing that I know more about it than anyone else you know. I've never been refused in my life and I know I've asked a hundred. I've had medals for that.

"I always try to make each one different," he will continue. "Girls sometimes compare notes and it makes it awkward. The girl I'm engaged to now doesn't know any of my other girls, though, so I'm safe enough.

[Sidenote: "One of the Best Proposals"]

"I'll never forget the way I did that. I think it was one of the best proposals I ever made. She's a mighty pretty little thing,--blue eyes and black hair,--a regular Irish type. I must tell you first, though, how I came to know her.

"The one I was engaged to just before I asked her, had just broken it off on account of property which her children would lose if she married again. She was a widow, you know. I've told you about her--the one with red hair. Between you and me, that's the only woman in God's world my heart ever went out to. That is the love of my life. Her little girl, eleven years old, was in love with me, too. She used to tremble when I kissed her, and was jealous of her mother. But this little girl I'm engaged to now, why I just love the ground she walks on.

[Sidenote: "A Very Peculiar Affair"]

"Well," after a pause, "this was a very peculiar affair. Of course I was all broken up over losing her--couldn't eat nor sleep--I was a perfect wreck. This old friend of mine happened along, and he says, 'You'll have to brace up, old man. Come on out to my house in the country and rest up a bit.' So I went, and met his daughter.

"Five days after I met her, I asked him for her hand. I explained it to him just as I would to my own father, and he understood all right. He's a fine fellow. He said I could have her. Of course I'd asked her first.

"Yes--I'm getting to that. I took her out for a walk one afternoon, and when we came to the river, we sat down to talk. It was a perfect day. I began by saying how sad it was to see a beautiful flower and to know that it was out of one's reach, or to see anything beautiful and know that one never could possess it. I led up to the subject by gentle degrees, and then I said: 'You must have seen that I love you, and you know without my telling you, that I want you to be my wife. I don't say I want you to marry me, because I want you to do more than that--I want you to be my wife.' (Fine distinction that!)

"Well, she was very much surprised, of course, but she accepted me all right. Yes, I told her about the other woman, but in such a way that she understood it perfectly. Lots of other fellows wanted her and I snatched the prize from right under their very noses. I don't suppose I'll ever propose any more now. I'd never propose to you, even if I were free to do so, because I know you'd refuse me. You'd refuse me, wouldn't you? Somebody else might just as well have me, if you don't want me."

[Sidenote: In Spite of Varied Resources]

Yet in spite of the varied resources at woman's command, we sometimes hear of one who yearns for the privilege of seeking man in marriage. The woman who longs for the right to propose is evidently not bright enough to bring a man to the point.

Still worse than this, there are cases on record where women, not reigning queens, have actually proposed to men. The men who are thus sought in the bonds of matrimony are not slow to tell of it, confining themselves usually to their own particular circle of men friends. But the news sometimes filters through man's capacity to keep a secret, and the knowledge is diffused among interested spinsters.

[Sidenote: Hints]

What men term "hints" are not out of place, for the proposal market would be less active, were it not for "hints." But these are seldom given in words--unless a man happens to be particularly stupid.

When the proposal habit is not firmly fastened upon a man, and he begins to have serious designs upon some one girl, she knows it long before he does. Incidentally, the family and the neighbours have their suspicions.

Woman, with her strong dramatic instinct, wishes the proposal to occur according to accepted rules. Hence, if a man shows symptoms of whispering the momentous question in a crowd, he is apt to be delicately discouraged, and if the girl is not satisfied with her own appearance, there will also be postponement. No girl wants to be proposed to when her hair is dishevelled, her collar wilted, and her soul distraught by pestiferous mosquitoes.

But an ambitious and painstaking girl will arrange the stage for a proposal, with untiring patience, months before it actually happens. When she practices assiduously all the morning, that she may execute difficult passages with apparent ease in the evening, and willingly turns the freezer that there may be cooling ice opportunely left after dinner, to "melt if somebody doesn't eat it," she expects something to happen.

When the man finally appears, and the little brother marches off like a well-trained soldier, with two nickels jingling in his pocket, even the victim might be on his guard. When the family are unceremoniously put out of the house, and father, mother, and sisters are seen in the summer twilight, wandering in disconsolate pairs, let the neighbours keep away from the house under penalty of the girl's lasting hate.

Sometimes, when the family have been put out, and the common human interest leads intimate spinster friends to pass the house, there is nothing to be seen but the girl playing accompaniments for the man while he sings.

Yet the initiated know, for if a girl only praises a man's singing enough, he will most surely propose to her before many moons have passed. The scheme has a two-fold purpose, because all may see that he finds the house attractive, and if no engagement is announced, the entire affair may easily be explained upon musical and platonic grounds.

[Sidenote: A Formal Proposal]

Owing to the distorted methods of courtship which prevail at the present day, a girl may never be sure that a man really cares for her until he makes a formal proposal. If a man were accepted the minute he proposed, he would think the girl had been his for some time, and would unconsciously class her as among those easily won.

The insinuation that she has been easily won is the thing which is not to be borne. It may have been simple enough, in fact, but let a man beware how he trifles with this delicate subject, even after fifty years of marriage.

[Sidenote: On Probation]

Consequently, it is the proper thing to take the matter under advisement and never to accept definitely without a period of probation. This is the happiest time of a girl's life. She is absolutely sure of her lover and may administer hope, fear, doubt, and discouragement to her heart's content.

The delicate attentions which are showered upon her are the envy of every spinster on the street who does not know the true state of the affair. Sometimes, with indifferent generosity, she divides her roses and invites the less fortunate to share her chocolates. This always pleases the man, if he knows about it.

Also, because she is not in the least bound, she makes the best of this last freedom and accepts the same courtesies from other men. Nothing is so well calculated to sound the depths of original sin in man's nature, as to find his rival's roses side by side with his, when a girl has him on probation. And he never feels so entirely similar to an utter idiot, as when he sees a girl to whom he has definitely committed himself, flirting cheerfully with two or three other men.

Woe be to him if he remonstrates! For Mademoiselle is testing him with this end in view. If he complains bitterly of her outrageous behaviour, she dismisses him with sorrowful dignity, jealousy being the one thing she cannot tolerate in men.

[Sidenote: Opportunity for Fine Work]

There is opportunity for fine work in the situation which the young woman immediately develops. A man may take his choice of the evils which lie before him, for almost anything may happen.

He may complain, and if he shows anger, there is war. If he betrays jealousy, there is trouble which marriage will accentuate, rather than lessen. If he shows concern because his beloved is so fickle, and insinuates that so unstable a person will not make a good wife, he touches pride in a vital spot and his cause is no more. Let him be manfully unconcerned; as far above jealousy and angry reproach as a St. Bernard is above a kitten--and Mademoiselle is his.