Many a woman has given her heart to one lover and herself to another.
The first is always won; the second is sometimes extorted. Yet,
It is wonderful how a woman will contrive to make all her lovers believe
they are winners.
* * *
It often gives a lady a pleasure to give her lover a pang.
* * *
Not many but have tasted the bitterness of the conflict between the
desire of the flesh and the resentment of the spirit. Explain these terms
who may.
* * *
To attempt by erring to cure an erring lover, is to administer, not an
antidote, but an adjuvant. It works poison in the blood.
When (and if) in a tortuous love, a man arrives at a 'Don't give a damn'
stage, he is not to be classed with the animals known as docile. And as
to a woman. . . . . . . but polite language has its limits.
* * *
Many a man has be exasperated, not only by the audacity of his rival, but
by the equanimity with which his lady-love views that audacity. He
forgets that, as a rule,
Feminine complaisance varies directly as masculine audacity. And yet,
often enough, as a simple matter of fact, 118 Masculine diffidence is
vastly more potent than masculine audacity. And further,
Rarely need the complaisance that audacity evokes perturb the diffident
man; since
Rarely need the complaisance that audacity evokes perturb the diffident
man; since
The true woman may give her fingertips to the gallant; she gives herself
to the worshiper. The pity o' it is that
The worshiper cannot away with the complaisance that permits a woman to
give even her finger-tips to the gallant. And
Few are the women who have plumbed the silent and sensitive depths of the
diffidence of her devotee. The worst of it is,
The devotee essays two things: he would apotheosize the object of his
adoration and place her as a constellation among the stars; yet he would
have her at the same time terrestrial and tangible. When the woman shows
herself terrestrial and tangible to others than he, the faith of the
devotee is shaken. In fine,
Every lover attempts that impossible task: the realization of the
heavenly ideal. Perhaps
It is in aphelion that the corona appears most splendid;
Were perihelion to result is coalescence, perhaps the photosphere would
be proved composed of terrestrial vapors. And if it did (as no doubt it
would), would it be at all bedimmed? For, to the devout astrologer
Nothing, nothing will ever destroy beauty--and therefore wonder. So,
Bodily beauty, where Love is priestess, is a daedal spur to the loftiest
worship.