Part 19 (1/2)

4. ALL SHOULD CULTIVATE THE FACULTY OF AMATIVENESS OR CONNUBIAL LORE.--Study the personal charms and mental accomplishments of the other s.e.x by ardent admirers of beautiful forms, and study graceful movements and elegant manners, and remember, much depends upon the tones and accents of the voice. Never be gruff if you desire to be winning. Seek and enjoy and reciprocate fond looks and feelings. Before you can create favorable impressions you must first be honest and sincere and natural, and your conquest will be sure and certain.

Love and Common-Sense.

1. Do you love her because she goes to the altar with her head full of book learning, her hands of no earthly use, save for the piano and brush; because she has no conception of the duties and responsibilities of a wife; because she hates housework, hates its everlasting routine and ever recurring duties; because she hates children and will adopt every means to evade motherhood; because she loves her ease, loves to have her will supreme, loves, oh how well, to be free to go and come, to let the days slip idly by, to be absolved from all responsibility, to live without labor, without care? Will you love her selfish, s.h.i.+rking, calculating nature after twenty years of close companions.h.i.+p?

2. Do you love him because he is a man, and therefore, no matter how weak mentally, morally or physically he may {124} be, he has vested in him the power to save you from the ignominy of an old maid's existence? Because you would rather be Mrs. n.o.body, than make the effort to be Miss Somebody?

because you have a great empty place in your head and heart that nothing but a man can fill? because you feel you cannot live without him? G.o.d grant the time may never come when you cannot live with him.

[Ill.u.s.tration: AN EARNEST CALLER.]

3. Do you love her because she is a thoroughly womanly woman; for her tender sympathetic nature; for the jewels of her life, which are absolute purity of mind and heart; for the sweet sincerity of her disposition; for her loving, charitable thought; for her strength of character? because she is pitiful to the sinful, tender to the sorrowful, capable, self-reliant, modest, true-hearted? in brief, because she is the embodiment of all womanly virtues?

4. Do you love him because he is a manly man; because the living and operating principle of his life is a tender reverence for all women; because his love is the overflow of the best part of his nature; because he has never soiled his soul with an unholy act or his lips with an oath; because mentally he is a man among men; because physically he stands head and shoulders above the ma.s.ses; because morally he is far beyond suspicion, in his thought, word or deed; because his earnest manly consecrated life is a mighty power on G.o.d's side?

5. But there always has been and always will be unhappy marriages until men learn what husbandhood means; how to care for that tenderly matured, delicately const.i.tuted being, that he takes into his care and keeping. That if her wonderful adjusted organism is overtaxed and overburdened, her happiness, which is largely dependent upon her health, is destroyed.

6. Until men give the women they marry the undivided love of their heart; until constancy is the key-note of a life which speaks eloquently of clean thoughts and clean hearts.

7. Until men and women recognize that self-control in a man, and modesty in a woman, will bring a mutual respect that years of wedded life will only strengthen. Until they recognize that love is the purest and holiest of all things known to humanity, will marriage continue to bring unhappiness and discontent, instead of that comfort and restful peace which all loyal souls have a right to expect and enjoy.

8. Be sensible and marry a sensible, honest and industrious companion, and happiness through life will be your reward.

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[Ill.u.s.tration]

What Women Love in Men.

1. Women naturally love courage, force and firmness in men. The ideal man in a woman's eye must be heroic and brave. Woman naturally despises a coward, and she has little or no respect for a bashful man.

2. Woman naturally loves her lord and master. Women who desperately object to be overruled, nevertheless admire men who overrule them, and few women would have any respect for a man whom they could completely rule and control.

3. Man is naturally the protector of woman; as the male wild animal of the forest protects the female, so it is natural for man to protect his wife and children, and therefore woman admires those qualities in a man which make him a protector.

4. LARGE MEN.--Women naturally love men of strength, size and fine physique, a tall, large and strong man rather than a short, small and weak man. A woman always pities a weakly man, but rarely ever has any love for him.

5. SMALL AND WEAKLY MEN.--All men would be of good size in frame and flesh, were it not for the infirmities visited upon them by the indiscretion of parents and ancestors of generations before.

6. YOUTHFUL s.e.xUAL EXCITEMENT.--There are many children born healthy and vigorous who destroy the full vigor of their generative organs in youth by self-abuse, and if they survive and marry, their children will have small bones, small frames and sickly const.i.tutions. It is therefore not strange that instinct should lead women to admire men not touched with these symptoms of physical debility.

7. GENEROSITY.--Woman generally loves a generous man. Religion absorbs a great amount of money in temples, churches, ministerial salaries, etc., and ambition and appet.i.te absorb countless millions, yet woman receives more gifts from man than all these combined: she {127} loves a generous giver.

_Generosity and Gallantry_ are the jewels which she most admires. A woman receiving presents from a man implies that she will pay him back in love, and the woman who accepts a man's presents, and does not respect him, commits a wrong which is rarely ever forgiven.

8. INTELLIGENCE.--Above all other qualities in man, woman admires his intelligence. Intelligence is man's woman-captivating card. This character in woman is ill.u.s.trated by an English army officer, as told by O. S.

Fowler, betrothed in marriage to a beautiful, loving heiress, summoned to India, who wrote back to her:

”I have lost an eye, a leg, an arm, and been so badly marred and begrimmed besides, that you never could love this poor, maimed soldier. Yet, I love you too well to make your life wretched by requiring you to keep your marriage-vow with me, from which I hereby release you. Find among English peers one physically more perfect, whom you can love better.”