“The young man fights shy of the girl who makes a dead set after him,”
was the inelegant, but o’er-true paragraph I read in the paper not long
since. The paragraphist was evidently a man and knew his sex.
The girl who runs after a man fails. She more likely disgusts him
than flatters him. He does not want her or her attentions when he can
have them without the seeking. It is man’s province to woo, and his
whole nature seems to revolt against a turning of the tables. I call
to mind a schoolmate who on this account was a complete failure. She
was pretty, bright, even witty, well educated, moved in good society,
and had money, but no man wanted her. Her boldness disgusted all of
them. When she saw one she fancied, she paid such open court to him
that he avoided her. Some time afterwards, when she saw the uselessness
of pursuit there, she turned her attentions elsewhere, running after
another man. Although naturally attractive, I never knew a man who
wanted her.
I have known of other girls who have never married for this same
reason. It seems to be a common fault. It is a serious one. If you are
at all inclined to be forward with men, stop it. You will not only
fail to marry, you will lose respect. You gain nothing and lose all.
You cheapen yourself and your charms when you “throw yourself at a
man’s head.” As it has been decreed from the beginning of the world
that man is the head of the woman, so it is decreed that as he shall
protect her, he is the one to woo and she the one to be won. You will
meet coarse men who will respond to all your advances. They will pay
you attention just for the fun of the thing. They will never marry
you, and it would be a good lesson to you if you could hear them talk
of you among themselves. A man never spares a girl who has no respect
for herself. A man whom you run after may even say many tender things
to you. He may lead you up to the point where, if you had not begun
it, you would have a right to expect him to ask you to marry him. He
doesn’t. He stops just there.
A girl’s great charm is a sweet, womanly modesty, which appears to hide
a love she cannot help feeling.
It is a great mistake to let your male friends see you with any
blemishes upon you. If you have a breaking-out on the face, a swollen
cheek, a red nose, or anything which disfigures you, hide yourself
till it is over. Men like to idealize a girl whom they admire, and
they cannot idealize a swollen face or a red nose. I knew a girl who
continually had styes on her eyes. She was not wise enough to hide
herself at the time, but continued to go out where she would meet her
male friends. She has never married, and I have always thought that
this is the reason. Another girl had her front teeth drawn, and went
about toothless for a while. Other girls do not hesitate to let men see
them with their bangs in curl-papers. A man will never let you see him
with his hair not combed or with his face lathered for shaving.
Be tidy always. Have your hair combed, your dress neat, even if it is
old. Patches are to be respected, while holes mark the sloven. Always,
even if you are scrubbing the floor, be ready to see any one who
comes. The very one in whose eyes you most desire to appear well may
come then. Some men have a way of dropping in at such unexpected times.
Many a man has been disillusionized by a dirty dress or a frowsy head.
Men like a nice appearance. They never want to marry a sloven if they
know it. A bright and interesting writer has never married for this
reason. Her head is never combed, and there is always a rip somewhere
in her dress. Her hands are generally touched off with ink.
The independent, self-reliant girl is rarely a favorite with men. A
man loves to protect. He does not like a masterful, bossy girl. He
does not want to follow as if he were a spaniel. It is a poor specimen
of a man who does not want to lead. Three sisters were left with a
very little money at the death of their father. They were self-reliant
and thorough business women. They invested their money to such good
advantage in real estate that in a few years they became wealthy women.
They were never married. It would have been impossible for any man with
any self-respect to have loved either of them: they were so mannish,
independent, and self-reliant.
Do not be of the so-called woman’s rights order. Men hate strong-minded
women who are forever harping on the wrongs of women and of the rights
they are going to have. That kind of girl generally does have a
wrong--the wrong of being neglected by the sterner sex. A woman’s right
is a husband, a home, and children. It is her right to have something
to love and to make happy. When she wants to usurp a man’s place, she
is going out of her sphere and makes a failure of her life. If you have
a leaning towards “woman’s rights,” erect yourself and lean the other
way. If you do not, you are doomed to unattractive spinsterhood, dress
reform, and the lecture platform, and to feed on husks. That sweet
little wife yonder, who hardly knows who is being voted for, and whose
horizon is bounded by her husband, is feeding on corn. She believes
that her rights are wifehood and motherhood, and she has them.
A self-assertive girl fails. A self-assertive, selfish, self-centred
girl is no man’s ideal. It is unwomanish as well as unwomanly. A girl
who can push ahead and take her own part is generally allowed to do so.
It is a mistake to be anything that is unfeminine. Men never admire
girls who have masculine characteristics. Only a fool will marry her.
Do not ape men in dress or manner. Strive to be womanish and womanly
at all times in every way. The attractive woman is womanly sweetness
personified.
The girl who insists upon attentions gets none. The girl who looks upon
her escort as her slave _pro tem._ loses him. You must never treat a
man as if he were your servant. He will not stand it from you, although
you may be attractive in other ways. His manhood will assert itself,
and no matter how much he has loved you, that love will be killed. It
is a poor outlook for married happiness. He does not care to wed where
he knows he will be henpecked.
A poor girl will marry before a wealthy one will. The latter has it
written upon her that it costs a mint to keep her. She may be much
admired, but she is an expensive luxury. Unless a young man has
exceptional means, he must give her up. You will find numbers of
unmarried women in the highest society everywhere. Men are afraid to
marry the daughters of millionnaires, unless a large dowry is going to
be among the wedding presents. Extravagant habits, they know, have
been her rule. She has never been taught to economize in anything. She
must have an establishment as elegant as her father’s. She could not
think of beginning as humbly as her parents likely did. So she either
fails to marry at all, or marries late in life, when the death of her
parents has given her an independent fortune.
A girl who shows her anxiety to marry generally fails to do so. A man
feels that it is marriage and not himself that she wants. That wounds
his vanity. She is never self-possessed in the society of men. She is
so anxious to please that she plans beforehand what she will say. When
she says it, it comes out wrong and does not fit in. She is trembling
and eager even if she does not run after him. Like vaulting ambition,
she o’erleaps herself. Every time you meet her, she has new and fresh
hopes. She is waiting always anxiously for a proposal, and would
accept any man who offered himself regardless of creed (almost color),
circumstances, character, and condition.
The sharp, snubby girl never succeeds. A man will not stay where he is
snubbed or where his vanity is wounded. Some girls, especially very
young ones, have an idea that they are saying smart things where they
are only saying sharp things. You hardly realize what a great mistake
you are making when you try to be witty at a man’s expense. You only
make a greater one when you are cutting in your remarks. Girls have an
idea that it does a young man good to have, as they express it, “the
conceit taken out of him.” I doubt if it does, and even so, you are
not the one to do it. Let him have a good opinion of himself in his
youth. Help him to it, rather than to try to take it away from him.
The outside world will give him knocks enough as he battles his way
up in it, to take any amount of conceit out of him. Maybe he comes to
you sometimes just smarting from one. Let him find for his wounds a
balm. Learn to soothe and sympathize instead of hurting. Your tongue
is sometimes so unwittingly cruel. Your laugh is so heartless that you
make a man with a rhinoceros skin shrink. It all flies back upon your
own head, however. You will suffer for it afterwards. It will only
drive him from you. Girls often can attract who cannot keep a beau.
Notice them. See if they have not sharp tongues and do not love to take
the conceit out of a man. “He has too good an opinion of himself, but I
let him know what I thought of him,” I have heard girls say. One thing
is certain--if you have done that, you will never hear from him that he
thinks much of you.
So round off your sharp corners. Remember that the young man with a
good opinion of himself is the more easy to win, because you can play
upon his vanity.
Do not speak your mind plainly. Certain persons pride themselves on
plain speaking, as if there were a virtue in hurting some one else’s
feelings. When you hear any one say, “I always speak my mind,” you may
know she says disagreeable things. She thinks when she has said that
that she can go ahead, cutting right and left with her tongue. They are
never people who praise. It appears that those who say “just what they
think” generally think unkind things.
Avoid doing so, especially to a man. It is unkind. It makes more
enemies the world over than anything else. Men will swallow praise _ad
nauseum_, but they will not take censure.
The eccentric girl had better never have been born, as far as men are
concerned. They will have nothing to do with her. If you are eccentric
and have prided yourself upon it, the sooner you become like folks
the better for you. A man will not pay attention to an oddity. An
outlandish hat that causes comment will sometimes drive him away. He
may not know what is the matter with it, but he knows he will not ask
you out while there is any danger of your wearing it. It is a mistake
to be odd in your conduct or language. Eccentricity grows upon one. If
you are given to it in your youth, what will you be in your old age? A
man would know that if he were rash enough to marry you, every day you
would make him ashamed.
The girl who has too many gentlemen friends hardly ever marries. There
is something in every man’s heart which subscribes to
“The rose that all are praising,
Is not the rose for me.”
There are cases where jealousy of another’s man’s attentions will
hasten a proposal. But two are in the case there, however, and both
are in love. Avoid many gentlemen callers. Do not allow your house
to become a meeting-place. A man will not fall in love where he sees
you smile as sweetly on another man as you do upon him. He will reign
alone. He never goes on shares where a heart is concerned. A man may
call often, where he knows he will meet other men, but it is only as
a friend. He does not fall in love with his hostess. When he marries
it will likely be some little modest girl who hardly knows any man but
himself.
When I was very young I remember hoping that when I grew older I would
have as many gentlemen callers as a certain young lady who lived near
us. Every night her parlors were thronged. It seemed to be a general
meeting-place for young men. Her sister and herself lavished their
smiles upon them. She never married. Her sister married a man whom she
met in another place, and who hardly ever came to the house. Another
girl had quite as many callers. She must have seen her danger, for she
ceased to receive them. Some time later she married.
It is flattering to your vanity to have a great many gentlemen friends
who call, and who take you out, but it will certainly stand in the
way of marriage. It is fun, doubtless, to count up a long list of
escorts, but the girl who can do so rarely counts up a long list of
offers. A girl who was so retiring that she was rarely invited out by a
gentleman, was loved by almost every man who got well-acquainted with
her. She could have counted up a long list of offers but a short list
of escorts. At a party she was a wall-flower. She had few gentlemen
callers, yet it seems as though all men longed to possess her. She
passed most of her evenings alone with her family, and married well. So
it shows that knowing many men would rather indicate no marriage than a
surety of one.
The cold girl never succeeds. A man would as soon make love to an
icicle. A man prefers fire. He likes a warm, living heart. He wants to
see that a girl has that heart. A pretty, stylish young girl whom I
want to see settled in life is failing to do so on just that account.
She in not naturally cold, but when she is at all interested in a man,
she becomes almost frigid in his presence. She is too afraid of showing
her interest in him to allow him to see that she responds to his. A man
wants an affectionate, warm-hearted wife. So he will marry what seems
to him to be an affectionate girl. There is a certain warmth of manner
that will show this disposition.
A girl fails who will not let the man who is beginning to love her see
that she can return love. It must be shown modestly, however. You must
be sympathetic. Man has his success and his failures in life. As he
comes to you, he is thinking of them more than he is of you. He wants
to talk of them. If you do not show a sympathetic interest, he will go
where he can get it. Draw him out on his favorite topic, no matter if
it is himself. I remember once walking two squares with a gentleman who
talked of nothing else but a slight injury on his hand.
An interesting, intellectual lady is going through life unmarried
for no other reason, I believe, than her lack of sympathy. You are
conscious of this lack whenever you converse with her. If you mention
yourself, your humble aim and ambitions, a dead silence falls. You feel
as if you were undone and wish you could hide your head. A woman will
hasten to change the subject and to make amends. A man leaves and never
returns.
A man likes to look, as it were, in a mirror. He likes to see himself
reflected in the eyes that meet his. He wants to feel that the girl has
so much interest in him that she is interested in every word he says
about himself.
The girl who talks about herself usurps his prerogative. He does not
relish that, and her society is stupid to him. _I_ is a man’s pronoun.
_You_ is a woman’s. Very young girls who are filled with themselves
and their own affairs are very much given to this. As they grow older,
they see it does not do. Bear in mind that no matter how pretty you are
or how sweet, if you will talk about yourself to a man, you become “as
tedious as a twice-told tale vexing the dull ears of a drowsy man.”
There is an old witticism which tells the truth in a nutshell: “What
is a bore? A man who talks about himself when you want to talk about
yourself.”
The high-tempered girl fails. A man bent upon matrimony avoids her if
he is aware of it. If you have such an infirmity, try to get rid of it
as you would a facial blemish. Try harder; for it is indeed far worse
than any bodily disfigurement. Our Lord, whose strength is sufficient
for you always, will help you to do so. Some girls falsely call it a
high spirit. It is anything but that. It is a weak spirit. A girl who
gives way to temper has no control over herself. She is weak instead of
high and strong. Her doors are always open, and whoever will may come
in and upset her. Instead of being proud of it, be ashamed of it. While
possessing it, your life is a failure everywhere.
A sweet, interesting, lively conversationalist is one thing, and a girl
with a long tongue is another. Avoid gossip and meddling.
It is a mistake to entertain a gentleman with an account of your
neighbor’s failings and backslidings. His interests are broader. He
rarely stoops to such little things, and they weary him. Men never care
for girls who have the reputation for being gossips. Fill your mind
with better things. Read and enlarge your powers of conversation.
It is a mistake to be inquisitive. While a man likes a girl to be
interested in him and in his doings, he does not want to be questioned
about them. A walking interrogation point is never a pleasant
companion. When you draw him out it must be with tact.
A precise, prim, what we call an old maidish girl is a failure. She is
born to a lonely life of spinsterhood. Unless she change she cannot
escape her fate. At heart she may be all that is true and good, but
no man will ever find that out. As a rule men judge of us by outward
appearances. They take women more for what they seem to be than for
what they are. The good qualities of the prim girl are all lost upon
him.
With gentlemen a loud girl never succeeds. She can always attract the
attentions of coarse men, but a well-bred man avoids her. He loves
modesty. He does not want the girl whom he escorts to be conspicuous
by boisterous talking and laughing. He does not want her to be
hail-fellow-well-met with every man they meet. It shows she has no
modesty. He cannot respect her and will not marry her. It is never nice
to be “gay” or “fast.” The men whom you attract about you by it are not
the men you want to marry. They are the kind who do not want to marry
you or any one else.
Loud, conspicuous dressing is never an attraction. Men like stylish,
well-dressed girls, but they never like anything that is flashy or that
attracts attention.
The girl who imagines every man she meets is in love with her rarely
is loved by one. This is a common fault with young girls. It comes
either from innate silliness or from the reading of too many novels.
The worst of it is, she is not even cured of her folly when the men
do not propose to her, but do to some other girl. She imagines some
insurmountable difficulty was in his way, and that he has only married
the other girl out of pique. That is the way it was in the last novel
she read. Girls, be sensible. Every man you meet will not fall in love
with you. When one does, he will let you know it. Men are not given to
sighing in secret over one girl, then marrying another without love. A
man who loves you will be open about it. He will not avoid you. He acts
on the spot: sometimes without much thought. So when a man does not pay
attention to you, rest assured, unless you have offended him, that he
does not want to do so. He is not in love with you. He is more likely
to pay attention without loving, than to love without paying attentions.
A vain girl fails. The pretty girl who depends altogether upon her
looks and is proud of her beauty, rarely marries. I have spoken of this
before. It has been thought that in matrimony, as in other fields, the
plain-featured girl has the greatest success. A pretty girl starts out
with false notions of her charms. She thinks that she has only to be
seen to be loved. She overestimates her one gift, and does not try to
cultivate others. Youths who easily fall in love and as easily out
again are caught by a merely pretty face. Men want something more.
Let me quote from an article on this subject which I read the other
day: “Look about you and count the number of faded, thwarted beauties
you know, who are embittered dependents, or else late in life have
picked up a broken stick in the shape of a partner to help disguise
their crippled vanity. In fact, so frequently is this the case that
between the ages of sixteen and twenty-six only extraordinary virtue
and talent ever saves a belle from grievous folly in her aspirations.”
So if you are a beauty and wish to marry, I advise you strongly to put
aside all vanity, and to cultivate the superior charms of your plainer
sisters.
Never allow your mother to do the courting. There are times when a girl
can win a man against his will, and he will never know that it was she
who did it. A mother never can do this. A man knows it every time. When
he sees her efforts, he is forewarned and on his guard. It is all done
in cold blood and deliberately by the mother. The daughter has less
deliberation and a great deal of warm blood when she attempts it. He is
likely to think: “What an interesting girl! I believe I could get her
if I tried,” and may try. Of the mother’s efforts, he thinks: “That old
woman wants me to marry her daughter. I can see through her. I won’t do
it.”
A mother may make herself so attractive that, if she were a girl, she
would win him. Notwithstanding that, he hardens his heart against the
daughter. A lady who, even as a grandmother, is attractive to men,
tried in her early married days to win a young man for her sister. He
responded quickly to her overtures, and seemed glad to come to the
house. She thought she was succeeding, when one day he said to her:
“I know what you are about. You might as well give it up, you won’t
accomplish it. If you were not married, however, I would propose to you
to-day.”
She did give it up.
A girl makes a mistake who brags of her conquests. She should never
speak of them to any one. If a man whom you cannot accept offers you
his hand, forget that he did so. By your manner to him when you meet
afterwards, endeavor to make him forget it. The girl who tells about
the hearts she has won, wins no more. Men grow afraid of her. She is
not to be trusted, they think. If she will lead other men on to propose
only to reject them, then tell of it, she will do the same to them.
A girl who fears that the man to whom she only is pleasant will
think she is in love with him, is not likely to accomplish much
matrimonially. She grows too self-conscious and stiff in her manner.
You must forget yourself, or remember only that a man is won by a
pleasant manner. If he did think you were a bit interested in him, he
would be flattered by it, and might return it shortly.
By a pleasant manner I do not mean a continual giggling. While you must
be animated and lively, you cannot laugh continually. A sensible girl
can be grave as well as gay. There are times, and plenty of them, when
laughter jars. There is certainly a time to laugh and a time to cry;
but there is never a time to giggle. Solomon gives a list of almost
everything for which we have time, but he never says a word about
giggling. A bright, animated manner and continual giggling are two
different things. A bright girl is everywhere a success. A giggler is
generally considered half-witted. A giggler has no depth of feeling. A
bright, lively girl generally has a great deal of feeling; she is not
slow to show it, either.
Do not laugh when you talk. Do not laugh the moment a man speaks to
you, keeping it up all the time he is with you. It looks as if you were
delighted out of your senses. Do not laugh every time he looks at you
till he begins to wonder if there is a black spot on his nose. Some men
may prefer a grave girl any way. You might study the man and the place
before you are too lively.
It may be that some of you who read these chapters have failed so far
to win any man’s love. Examine yourself and your peculiarities to see
wherein the trouble lies. When you have found it, strive to overcome
the difficulty. You cannot do it in your own strength. The Lord will
help you. He will give you grace to overcome every evil temper, every
disagreeable habit, every unlovely manner. If you ask Him, He will
make you sweet and lovely. Rest assured that He is interested in your
success; for He did not intend woman to live alone.