In the School of Love, a man is forever just taking up a brand new "study" and discovering that all the old loves were nothing but "preparatory practice."
The eugenic idea of choosing a husband would be perfectly lovely, only that a husband isn"t a matter of choice, but of chance, accident or blind luck.
Love is woman"s eternal spring, man"s eternal fall.
It isn"t beauty, and it isn"t cleverness, and it isn"t clothes that make a particular woman fascinating. It is just a sort of magnetic current which seems to run around her and set her eyes a-twinkling--and a man"s heart tingling.
It is utterly useless to tell a man the honest truth. That is the last thing on earth which a man ever tells a woman--so of course it"s the last thing on earth which he ever expects to hear from her.
The average man, like "all Gaul," is divided into three parts: his vanity, his digestion and his ambition. Cater to the first, guard the second and stimulate the third--and his love will take care of itself.
There is no such tonic for a man"s nerve as a capricious wife and no such softener for his backbone as a self-sacrificing one.
A man can sit in the moonlight and talk "New Thought" to a pretty girl and at the same time look right into her eyes with all the old, old ones.
Bohemia is an oasis in the desert of life where only the rich-in-dreams may go and only the poor-in-purse may stay.
There is no way of two people really knowing each other until after they are married and have to share the same dollar, the same table, the same newspaper and the same chiffonier.
[Ill.u.s.tration]
WHAT EVERY WOMAN WONDERS
THERE are gardens full of flowers that I feared to pluck.
There are eyes full of promises that I dared not believe.
There are lips full of sweetness, from which I turned away.
I wonder if Paradise holds anything for me, one-half so beautiful As the joys I have renounced for its sake!
A man"s life is like a musical comedy; there is always one woman in it who is the star--but it takes ninety-nine others to make up the "ensemble."
Nothing so annoys a man as to have a woman "cheer him up," when he is enjoying the exquisite luxury of feeling sorry for himself.
The modern girl"s "perfect candor" has taken the sin out of sincerity--and most of the sweet scent out of the flower of sentiment.
Without the Serpent, the Garden of Eden would seem a dull old place to most men.
Love is neither a bonfire, nor a kitchen-fire; but an altar-fire, to be kept burning forever with prayer and reverence.
In the language of love, "Forever!" means for quite a little while and "Never!" means not until next season.
"A fool there was, and he made his prayer"--to two women on the same party wire.
Love is a matter of give and take--marriage, a matter of misgive and mistake.
Even a fool knows enough to laugh at a man"s joke--but only a born Siren knows enough to hang onto his coat-lapel and beg him to "Tell it again!"
Some men are born for matrimony, some achieve matrimony--but most of them are merely poor dodgers.
There are many times when a woman would gladly drop her husband, if she did not feel morally certain that some other woman would come right along and pick him up.
Alas! In choosing a husband, it seems that you"ve always got to decide between something tame and uninteresting, like a gold-fish, and something wild and fascinating, like a mountain goat.
Perhaps the first time a young man actually realizes that he is married is when he catches himself looking at other women with that strange, new, wistful sort of interest.
It is at once the mission and the punishment of the flirt to go through life tapping the hearts of men, that they may overflow--for other women.
The sweetest things in a woman"s life are her "yesterdays"--the sweetest things in a man"s life are his "tomorrows."
The man who is fondly looking for a perfect angel almost invariably ends by marrying some little devil who knows how to persuade him that her horns are merely the signs of a budding halo.
Woman is to most men what "heart-failure" is to the doctors--something that it is always convenient to blame any old thing on.
"The mind has a thousand eyes--the heart but one!"--and that usually goes fast asleep, after marriage.
Philosophy is the only kind of "sweetening" with which to make life palatable.
Estimated from a wife"s experience, the average man spends fully one-quarter of his life in looking for his shoes.
An "idealist" is a man who is content to worship a woman from afar--and let some gross, unselfish materialist marry her and support her.
Changing husbands is about as satisfactory as changing a bundle from one hand to the other; it gives you only temporary relief.
France may claim the happiest marriages in the world, but the happiest divorces in the world are "made in America."
No doubt, even Solomon told each of his 700 wives that he had merely _thought_ he loved the others, but that _she_ was the only girl he "ever really cared for" in just that way.
Love is what makes a man appear blissfully happy, when a woman is mussing up the precious wisp of hair across his bald spot.
Love is what makes a woman laugh delightedly when a man is telling her for the second time, a story which she knew by heart before he told it to her the first time.
All this "s.e.x-antagonism" must have started when Adam brought in the first rabbit and ordered Eve to make it into Chicken-a-la-King.
When a man takes a notion to marry, he doesn"t start following it up--he merely stops running away.
A woman is young until the light dies out of her last lover"s eyes.
Whenever a pretty girl runs her fingers through his hair, a cautious bachelor can"t help thinking of what happened to Samson.
Success in flirtation, as in gambling, consists in "getting out of the game" at the psychological moment before your luck begins to turn.
Being a husband"s "economic equal" may be awfully n.o.ble and advanced; but it usually means being all of his ribs and most of his vertebrae.
Men have been cla.s.sified as "what women marry." They have two feet, two hands and sometimes two wives--but never more than one collar-b.u.t.ton or one idea at a time.
When a man says, "n.o.body understands me," don"t fancy he is suffering.