WOMEN AND THEIR WAYS
I sometimes wonder how some women dare go out when it is windy. Their
hats are fixed to their hair by means of long pins; their hair is fixed
to their heads by means of short ones, and sometimes it happens that
their heads are fixed to their shoulders by the most delicate of
contrivances. Yes, it is wonderful!
* * *
Fiction is full of Kings and Princes marrying shepherdesses and
beggar-maids; but in reality it is only the Grand-Ducal House of
Tuscany, which for nearly three hundred years has exhibited royal
Princesses running away with dancing masters and French masters engaged
at their husbands' courts.
* * *
A man in love is always interesting. What a pity it is that husbands
cannot always be in love!
* * *
Men who always praise women do not know them well; men who always speak
ill of them do not know them at all.
* * *
What particularly flatters the vanity of women is to know that some men
love them and dare not tell them so. However, they do not always insist
on those men remaining silent for ever.
* * *
The saddest spectacle that the world can offer is that of a sweet,
sensible, intelligent woman married to a conceited, tyrannical fool.
* * *
The mirror is the only friend who is allowed to know the secrets of a
woman's imperfections.
* * *
When a woman is deeply in love, the capacity of her heart for charity is
without limit. If all women were in love there would be no poverty on
the face of the earth.
* * *
The fidelity of a man to the woman he loves is not a duty, but almost an
act of selfishness. It is for his own sake still more than for hers that
he should be faithful to her.
* * *
Two excellent kinds of wine mixed together may make a very bad drink. An
excellent man and a very good woman married together may make an
abominable match.
* * *
Jealousy, discreet and delicate, is a proof of modesty which should be
appreciated by the very woman who should resent violent jealousy.
* * *
When you constantly hear the talent or the wit of a woman praised, you
may take it for granted that she is not beautiful. If she were, you
would hear her beauty praised first of all.
* * *
It is slow poison that kills love most surely. Love will survive even
infidelity rather than boredom or satiety.
* * *
Men study women, and form opinions, generally wrong ones. Women look at
men, guess their character, and seldom make mistakes.
* * *
All the efforts that an old woman makes to hide her age only help to
advertise it louder.
* * *
Of a man and a woman, it is the one who is loved, but who does not love,
that is the unhappier of the two.
* * *
Women often see without looking; men often look without seeing.
* * *
I know handsome men who are bald, and there are not a few, but many, who
derive distinction from this baldness. There are men--severe, stern
types of men--who are not disfigured, but improved, by spectacles. Just
imagine, if you can, the possibility of a bald woman with spectacles
inspiring a tender passion! So much for the infallibility of the
proverb, 'What's sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander,' so often
quoted by women when they are told that men can afford to do this or
that, but not they. Lady women-righters, please answer.
* * *
In the tender relations between men and women, novelty is a wonderful
attraction, and habit a powerful bond; but between the two there is a
bottomless precipice into which love often falls, never to be heard of
afterward. Happy those who know how to bridge over the chasm!
* * *
A woman never forgets, however old she may be, that she was once very
beautiful. Why should she? The pity is that she very often forgets that
she is so no longer. My pet aversion in society is the woman of sixty
who succeeds in making herself look fifty, thinks she is forty, acts as
if she were thirty, and dresses as if she were twenty.
* * *
I am not prepared to say that celibacy is preferable to marriage; it
has, however, this decided advantage over it: a bachelor can always
cease to be one the moment he has discovered that he has made a mistake.
* * *
Women are extremists in everything. Poets, painters and sculptors know
this so well that they have always taken women as models for War,
Pestilence, Death, Famine and Justice, Virtue, Glory, Victory, Pity,
Charity. On the other hand, virtues and vices, blessings and calamities
of a lesser degree are represented by men. Such are Work, Perseverance,
Laziness, Avarice, etc.
* * *
It is not given to any man or woman to fall in love more than once with
the same person. And although men and women may love several times in
succession, they can only once love to the fulness of their hearts.
* * *
Love does to women what the sun does to flowers: it colours them,
embellishes them, makes them look radiant and beautiful; but when it is
too ardent it consumes and withers them.
* * *
There are two terribly embarrassing moments in the life of a man. The
first is when he has to say 'all' to the woman he loves, and the second
when all is said.
* * *
If a man is not to a certain extent ill at ease in the presence of a
woman, you may be quite sure that he does not really love her.
* * *
A woman explains the beauty of a woman; a man feels it. A man does not
always know why a woman is beautiful; a woman always does.
* * *
The sweetest music in the ears of a woman is the sound of the praises of
the man whom she loves.
* * *
It is a mistake for a married couple to consider that marriage has made
them one. To be attractive to each other they should each preserve their
personality quite distinct. Marriage is very often dull because man and
wife are one, and feel lonely. Most people get bored in their own
company.
* * *
Happiness in matrimony is sober, serious, based on love, confidence, and
friendship. Those who seek in it frivolity, pleasure, noise, and passion
condemn themselves to penal servitude.
* * *
The great misfortune of mankind is that matrimony is the only vocation
for which candidates have had no training; yet it is the one that
requires the most careful preparation.
* * *
On the part of a husband, violent jealousy is an insult to his wife, but
delicate, discreet jealousy is almost a compliment to her, for it proves
his lack of self-confidence, and that sometimes he feels he is not good
enough for her, not worthy of her.
* * *
Most women have the hearts of poets and the minds of diplomatists. What
makes a wife so useful to an ambassador is that she adds her own power
of intuition to the five senses already possessed by her husband.
* * *
Love in matrimony can live only on condition that man and wife remain
interesting in each other's eyes. Devotion, fidelity, attention to duty,
and all the troop of domestic virtues will not be sufficient to keep
love alive.
* * *
Beauty is not the mother of Love. On the contrary, it is often love
which engenders beauty, gives brilliancy to the eyes, gracefulness to
the body, vibration to the voice. Love is the sun that hatches the
flowers of the soul. The face which reflects all the inner sentiments of
the heart betrays the love of its owner, and is beautiful.
* * *
Those who in good faith promise eternal love and those who believe in
such promises are dupes--the former of their hearts, the latter of their
vanity. Wine well taken care of improves by keeping, but not for ever;
it is destined to turn to vinegar sooner or later.
* * *
Love is a great healer. The worst characteristic traits of a man and of
a woman have been known to be cured by it.
* * *
Men and women do not love before they are thirty, men especially. Until
then it is little more than rehearsing. Fortunate are those who retain
for the play the same company they had engaged for the rehearsal.