Part 20 (1/2)

The publicity with which a woman will receive admiration from a male admirer 144 often is sufficient to astonish that admirer. But

Often enough it is the admiration, not the admirer, that a woman covets.

Indeed,

Many a woman is in love with love (3), but not her lover. But this no lover can be got to comprehend.

To flatter by deprecating a rival is a complement of extremely doubtful efficacy.

(3) I seem to remember that somebody before has said something like this before.

A woman does not admire too clement a conqueror. She admits the right to ovation, and to him who waives it she lightly regards.

Seek no stepping-stones unless you mean to cross:

He who gathers stepping-stones and refrains from crossing is contempted of women. Indeed,

Every advance of which advantage is not taken, is in reality a retreat.

And remember, too, that though

Sought interviews are sweet, those unsought are sweeter. And

Probably no son of Adam--and for the matter of that, probably no daughter of Eve--ever quite looks back with remorse upon a semi-innocent escapade. Yet

The man who thinks he can at any time extract himself from any feminine entanglement that he may choose to have raveled, is a simpleton.

The way of man with a maid may have been too wonderful for Agur; now-a-days the way of a man with a married woman would puzzle a wiser than he.

What is the att.i.tude to be maintained towards the too complaisant spouse of an honorable friend? That is a problem will puzzle weak men without end. Of that fatal and fateful dilemma when a wife or a husband falls victim to the wiles of another, there are, for the delinquent, two and only two horns (and it is a moot question upon which it is preferable to be impaled): Flight--either from the victor or the victrix. Yet

To some it is no anomaly to pray G.o.d's blessing upon a liaison. But these folk are to be pitied; for

A clandestine love always works havoc--havoc to all three. (4)

(4) Cf. Platus: ”Malus clandestinus est amor; d.a.m.num 'st merum.”

Will men and women never learn what trouble they lay up in store for themselves by breaking their plighted troths?