distance--if, for instance, the young man goes to the city to make
his financial way, so that marriage is possible--there is strong
chance that either he or she will find a more suitable mate. In such
cases, if the original engagement is carried out, happiness is almost
inevitable; and the breaking of the engagement may bring unhappiness to
at least one of the parties concerned. If the girl and man remain in
the same city, they gradually grow old, apart from each other. Their
little tricks and idiosyncrasies, which living together could have
smoothed out, become permanent--hardened into unbendable things. They
come to regard each other as matters of course, without the exquisite
physical thrill which love should mean. They have, in brief, all of the
discomfort and monotony of marriage without any of its joys.
Too brief engagements are at times more dangerous. This is especially
true where the man and girl have not known each other before. If they
have been raised side by side, there is small danger of being mated to
a person who will turn out, on closer acquaintance, to be everything
unworthy. The wisest thing is to let the engagement last a month or
longer, and then, if the mating is desired, take the plunge even on a
moderate income, than risk the danger of letting the engagement become
a tedious habit.
The normal termination of an engagement is marriage. Any book of
etiquette will tell you the formal ways to accept the mad gamble
of marriage, with all of the frills of such service, receptions,
honeymoons, and the like. The honeymoon, it may be pointed out, or the
period in which the deluded man and woman try to live on love alone,
is one of the most cruel inventions ever made by man. Its almost
invariable result (unless it be merely a brief trip, or a trip which
the parties desired to take anyhow) is to send them back to the city
thoroughly bored and disgusted with each other, and avid to interest
themselves, perhaps unduly, in parties outside the mated relationship.
For those who do not like the antique pomp of the marriage in church,
there is always the simpler ceremony of being married by a justice of
the peace, mayor, or alderman.
And there is, luckily for men and women, another termination possible,
and that is to break the engagement. This should not be done without
grave reason--but far more frequently than the actual breakings of
engagements, such a reason exists. The problem simply is, which
is better: to act wisely and terminate an unwise mating, which
would result in unhappiness, at the cost of some slight temporary
unhappiness; or to enter upon a life-time of unhappiness, or at best
a long stretch of it, breakable only by the costly and elaborate
method of separation or divorce, which may require the assumption by
one party or the other of a guilt not actually earned. Where the case
is so clear, there should be no hesitation: the engagement should be
terminated, the man accepting the blame out of a chivalrous insincerity
socially understood, and the parties parting, if possible, as friends.
If the matter is still uncertain, better a postponement than a
marriage, which may be repented soon enough. Only a mating which will
bring increasing happiness is wise, for that is the object of life, and
of its playtime, courtship.
VI
FAMOUS COURTSHIPS
_Courting by Poetry._--One of the invariable effects of the love
emotion is to inspire, in the amorous breast, the delusion that the man
or woman who is in love can write poetry. Most people can feel poetry,
but writing it is another story. Yet, whenever any celebrated case of
breach of promise comes up, we have the poetic effusions of him and her
published in the papers, for the delectation of the multitude. There
is good propaganda in courting the lady of your heart, or in replying
to the man of your heart, in the words of Shelley or some other great
lover--but your own words may not be as efficacious. Countless poetic
first volumes (and later ones, too), however, are filled up with the
overflow at wooing time, and occasionally such books are books which
the world would not willingly spare.
A favorite record of courtship by rhyme is _Lilies of the Valley_, by
Percival W. Wells, of Wantagh, New York. Could any woman resist strains
like this:
Life’s just begun! the flowing tide
Of love has stirred it into motion.
Farewell to bachelorhood’s calm pride,
And welcome, love’s intense emotion!
Faulty as the rhyme may be, the sentiment is flawless. Again,
Put thy hand in mine, and kiss me tenderly,
Beautiful Lilian, fashioned so slenderly;
Place a kiss upon my lips with thy dear lips so soft,
And do not stop with one, but kiss me oft.
How magically the “soft” evokes its rhyming mate, “oft.” “Soft,” which
at times is applied to brains, here refers to the lips. But for the
magic of rhyme, could we have had the picture of “Lilian” in the last
two words of this masterly confession?
I love thee, O I love thee, Lily; stay
Beside thy Percival and with sweet kisses say
That thou wilt always love him. Dearer than day
Art thou to me, O Lily--wanton fay!
Yet a poet out of the Village Milton class, say Shakespeare, might
be a safer guide in your own Muse flights. Shakespeare’s plays are
saturated with gorgeous examples of courtship. Othello’s magical wooing
of Desdemona is one type. Here the simple warrior and conqueror used
no method but the plain unadorned story of his deeds of daring. The
maiden’s heart capitulated to his indirect siege at the first attack. A
different love is Romeo’s, saturated with poetry:
Alack, there lies more peril in thine eye
Than twenty of their swords; look thou but sweet,
And I am proof against their enmity....
Sleep dwell upon thine eyes, peace in thy breast!
Would I were sleep and peace, so sweet to rest!
Then there is the caveman-wooing of Catherine the shrew by Petruchio
the roistering gallant--the most amusing courtship in Shakespeare, with
the possible exception of his bluff English king, who knows no French,
and his wooing of the spirited French princess, who knows no English.
But love speaks a language of its own and even this bar did not keep
the royal lovers from understanding each other. There is the simple,
childlike wooing of Ferdinand and Miranda in _The Tempest_, and there
is the passionate wooing--by the woman this time--of Adonis by Venus:
“Vouchsafe, thou, wonder, to alight thy steed,
And rein his proud head to the saddle-bow;
If thou wilt deign this favor, for thy meed
A thousand honey secrets shalt thou know:
Here come and sit, where never serpent hisses,
And being set, I’ll smother thee with kisses.
“Art thou ashamed to kiss! Then wink again,
And I will wink; so shall the day seem night;
Love keeps his revels where there are but twain;
Be bold to play, our sport is not in sight:
These blue-vein’d violets whereon we lean
Never can blab, nor know not what we mean....”
And having felt the sweetness of the spoil,
With blindfold fury she begins to forage;
Her face doth reek and smoke, her blood doth boil,
And careless lust stirs up a desperate courage;
Planting oblivion, beating reason back,
Forgetting shame’s pure blush and honor’s wrack.
Timid maids and men may well be reassured by this tempest of passion
on the part of love’s queen, and by the whole gallery of Shakespeare’s
great lovers.
_Great Lovers._--The world has its long roll of great lovers, whose
names are sweet on the tongues of the generations that come after them.
The Bible, in the _Song of Solomon_, has one of the greatest series of
love lyrics in all literature. David loved his Bath-Sheba as a king
loves; and Solomon was at least efficient, with his seven hundred
wives, princesses, and three hundred concubines. Helen of Sparta
eloped with Paris of Troy, and lighted the conflagration that burned
the topless towers of Troy to the ground, and embroiled the world in
the Trojan War and inspired the first two Greek epics. Dante saw the
girl Beatrice passing him on the street and as a result, he worshipped
her thereafter from a distance, and lifted her in imagination, in
his _Divine Comedy_, to the high throne of heaven. Don Juan was the
great predatory lover, putting on a new love as easily as he slipped
on a new garment. Bluebeard (or Gilles de Rais) was the bloodthirsty
lover; Cleopatra was the world’s queen, with Pompey, Caesar, and
Antony successively at her feet. In more modern times, Casanova was
the gentlest great lover of all time, with a roll of loves as long as
Solomon’s, and far more varied. Great secular popes, like Alexander VI,
the Borgia, were great in love; many of the Roman emperors were chiefly
distinguished in the lists of Cupid. Caesar himself was nicknamed “the
husband of all women.” Such men and women have made the history of
love. Read their love stories, as aids in your own suits.
Among the poets, we have had many great lovers. Shelley spent his
life in a high idealistic pursuit of the ideal woman, pouring out his
deathless lyrics to some Harriet or Mary or Jane or Emilia who captured
his fancy for the moment. Byron loved all over Europe, Keats burned out
his young life in a wild adoration of Fanny Brawne, as in this sonnet:
I cry you mercy--pity--love!--ay, love!
Merciful love that tantalizes not,
One-thoughted, never-wandering, guileless love,
Unmask’d, and being seen--without a blot!
O! let me have thee whole,--all--all--be mine!
That shape, that fairness, that sweet minor zest
Of love, your kiss,--those hands, those eyes divine,
That warm, white, lucent, million-pleasured breast--
Yourself--your soul--in pity give me all,
Withhold no atom’s atom or I die,
Or living on, perhaps, your wretched thrall,
Forget, in the midst of idle misery,
Life’s purposes,--the palate of my mind
Losing its gust, and my ambition blind!
Burns was a magnificent voice of love, who enriched man with many of
his choicest love-songs. Poe not only was a great lover, but used
the same poems successively with a number of desired women. Edna St.
Vincent Millay, among modern poets, has a charming cleverness in her
love-songs; and, indeed, modern poetry is full of excellent love
material. One of the most effective modern love sonnets is the dramatic
_Pirate Song_, from “Leaf Buds Turning Rose,” by the author of _The
Eagle Sonnets_:
Ahoy, there, you slim craft with the virgin ensign!
Heave to--we are boarding! You’re a fancy prey
To tread the slippery plank, or do your dancing
On air, over the wind-bedevilled spray.
Low in the water--you’ll be rotten with treasure!
Ay, there’ll be hot blood foulin’ your clean decks
When we shall tread you in our lordly pleasure
Then scuttle you with all the plundered wrecks.
Yet you’re a rakish craft.... How would you like it
To make one more of the buccaneering tell,
To raise the Jolly Roger, and not strike it
In the face of all the punishing fleets of hell?
By God, we’ll take you, then! Fair or foul weather,
Two of the black gentry, off together!
An amusing love story in rhyme is _The Lang Coortin’_, by Lewis
Carroll, best known for _Alice in Wonderland_. The lover for years
wooed the lady, saying no word of his love. She used his gold rings
as a chain for her doggie; stuffed the dog’s pillow with his repeated
locks of hair; and when he sent love letters from a far country, with
the postage still due on them, she had the postman take them all away.
For thirty years he had kept up this courtship: and now at last he
has come to propose. But the lady tells him, that, since he has lived
so satisfactorily for thirty years, he can wait a bit longer yet. He
repents, as he leaves her:
“O, if I find another lady,”
He said with sighs and tears,
“I am sure my courtin’ shall not be
Another thirty years;
“For if I find a lady gay
Exactly to my taste,
I’ll pop the question, aye or nay,
In twenty years, at most!”
There is a real lesson for lovers here. Do not postpone your proposal
until your grandchildren are old enough to laugh at your tardiness.
The first lovers were Adam and Eve, according to the Genesis story;
and Milton, in his largely unread _Paradise Lost_, has told their love
in resounding lines. The most recent lovers assumably include you who
are reading this book. Love is an art, as courtship and wooing is an
art: and your task is to perfect yourself in the art. You should make
your wooing serve the double function of winning the mate you desire
at the moment, and at the same time serve as an education to you in
the loved one, and the opposite sex in general. Both the educational
function, and the task of winning the desired one, call for your
highest abilities: and these abilities will be sharpened and increased
by a knowledge of man’s lore upon love, and the ups and downs of the
great lovers of the past. So saturate yourself, during the loving
period, with the literature of love: read carefully the love stories
of the world’s great lovers, and constantly increase your technique as
wooer, in the beginning of the courtship, in the actual engagement, and
in the most perilous of all periods--that period after the marriage has
commenced.
There is a third purpose, which hardly needs mention, and that is, the
pleasure that you yourself have in wooing. Pleasure consists in the
satisfying of an appetite--not in the satisfaction of it; when the
appetite is satisfied, your feeling becomes negative. The chase is
the fun; the gaining of the goal is a mere sense of accomplishment,
far below the joy of the running. Man has not only the appetite to
enjoy love, but the added appetite for the chase: and woman, daughter
of man, has this delight too, and an implanted pleasure in her part
of the wooing. Her part is, in general, more passive than man’s: she
gets her thrill from seeing the male or males cavorting before her,
in the endeavor to gain her approval. Yet, at times, when the worthy
male is backward or bashful, or young and inexperienced, she will
assume the aggressive, and be a very Venus in action. As a matter of
fact, no matter who does the actual wooing and proposing, it is today,
largely, woman who rules the field. How else explain her elaborate and
seductive dressing, to win man’s approval? Her concealment of this, and
display of that charm, her alluring perfume, her flattering pretense
that the man is the wisest being in the universe, her continuing
attentions to him in a thousand subtle little ways? These collectively
weave a net which even the wariest male fish may not often escape. Go
to your wooing, men, with all the courage you can: it is hardly the
time to reflect that you are being summoned to the slaughter, as the
spider nets her prey, as the spider nets her mate. It is pleasant to be
a victim of love: and some men found it a pleasure to be such a victim
constantly.
And when you have made yourself an artist in wooing, both in theory and
practice, do not be stingy with your lore, but pass it on to other men
and women, who lack it. For only the great in love are great in life,
and great in joy.
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE
Page 6: “and the male surivives” changed to “and the male survives”.
Page 20: “when the left the office,” changed to
“when he left the office,”
Page 26: “how other people regared” changed to “how other people regard”
Page 26: “have always hear dmade” changed to “have always heard made”
Page 30: “in mens’ eyes:” changed to “in men’s eyes:”
Page 31: “box of chewy chololates” changed to “box of chewy chocolates”
Page 32: “or a permanent one:” changed to “or a permanent one--”
Page 33: “wholly unattractive:” changed to “wholly unattractive,”
Page 35: “ask time to consider” changed to “ask for time to consider”
Page 37: “Fancy Flitations.” changed to “Fancy Flirtations.”
Page 37: “space alloted to” changed to
“space allotted to”
Page 48: “out what her fiancée’s” changed to “out what her fiancé’s”
Page 49: “can elect pie” changed to “can select pie”
Page 52: “The concensus of intelligent” changed to
“The consensus of intelligent”
Page 53: “of to his beloved” changed to “of to his beloved.”
Page 57: “VI. FAMOUS COURTSHIPS” changed to “VI FAMOUS COURTSHIPS”
Page 58: “peril in this eye” changed to “peril in thine eye”
Page 58: “against their enmity. .” changed to “against their enmity....”
Page 59: “Forgetting shames’ pure” changed to “Forgetting shame’s pure”
Page 61: “cleverness in her love songs” changed to
“cleverness in her love-songs”