Hints for Lovers

rl, A

own

, naturally, they differ wildly. But this is a thorny subject. Suffice it to say that

about girls. And they know it-which makes them more so

id the enumeration here. These things by themselves do not constitute a girl which is obvious; nor is any one girl wi

they should want to be men, men cannot conceive. Men pale before them, grow hot and cold before them, run before them (and after them), swear by

onder of men than they are of one ano

ne thing. When she is with other girls she is another thing. When she is with a lot of men, she i

you cannot have too much of a good thing. If this were true, a bevy of girls wou

s sheer nonsense: there is no such thing. And if there were, she could not compare with the real gir

men had tried to play with them. They would have found that they were play

ng more adorable than the high-spirited high-bred girl.-Of this she is quite aware-to our cost (I speak as a man). The consequence is, her p

is a precious good thing that they don't.-Not that th

his puzzle, that, among other things, tic

ld fill a Saratoga trunk; what her does

women. No boy knows this-and p

a girl, then finds himself in

er the play is leading: she

ruth (and significance) of that ancient

d is the slave of

Law or Justice: she was b

ries of girlish complaisance: the foolish, the ne'er-do-well, the bully, the

rblind law-loving man,-should the favored one be openly convi

recalls it not wholly: she may regre

a girl is always loyal; to subsequent and

r often the girl, nevertheless devotedly, and only under compulsion will he listen to the detractor: he may deser

ost portentous puzzle of the universe-the weal of woe of two high-aspiring, much-enduring,

for (in mathematical language which will no

and twenty a girl's love will under

imony than a girl with none: she knows more of men; e

ies of men is perhaps a wife's chief t

and fringrant girl wins ov

ittle ones-and for the same reasons because t

he amusements of life; but a day comes when love

r the kind of love that is

n sore put to it to pro

of c

le heartedness. And this every

a half-hearted acceptress of

a youthful damsel may be found in her manner o f receiving the

ticated, view with a certain pitying sort o

deness it is a great delight

under the genial warmth of her rays; the flattery to own powe

y in seriousness. A woman thinks s

squé in a city miss, is often inno

lay with love as if it were a doll; very soon aft

ngagement often works more

s attention which perturb the other; or, a subsequent and acknowled

oluments which accompany a promise to marry, those emoluments are not nice things fo

urtship is apt to breed a laxity with re

destine engagements, a

ord

e as attached as much importanc

is the law of her being, yet not for one moment dares she to exhibit too great an alacrity to obey that law; for she knows instinctively that an easy victory prognosticates a fickle victor. Is she abundantly endowed with the very attributes that make for wife-and mother-hood, a strong and swaying passion and an affectio

as a flirt; if, conscientious and demure, she awai

for life, she must go out of her way to accommodate so many travelers: and this one is lured by this, and that one by that, and another by something unnoticed by th

ithout it, she thinks to be overlooked (often enough a prepostero

tend that never did she

ss, is sometimes a

h at once, unaided and unlooked-for, that divine and supra-mundane spark which smolders lambent in every youthful breast: when maid