The Spinster Book Part 7

[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 n.o.body 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 circ.u.mstances. 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 amus.e.m.e.nts 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 att.i.tude 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 cla.s.s of women men tell their troubles and the other cla.s.s 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 G.o.d 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 impa.s.sable 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 fiancee 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 a.s.similate. 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

[Ill.u.s.tration]

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 const.i.tute 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.