Hints for Lovers — A Reader’s Guide

Never was there a woman who could and would deliberately wholly enlighten a man.

And, yet, marvelous and curious amongst things curious and marvelous, will but a woman fling artifice to the winds, and look and act and say as great Nature prompts,--wildly, willfully, wantonly,--that woman will captivate as no feminine wiles will ever captivate.

If the man were worth it, many a woman would dispense with the marriage ceremony. For

Ah! Love--love--love,--given love, what else is needed? (Unfortunately

Love can never be sure of itself--much less of anything else. Accordingly

The marriage contract is a device on the part of the community to provide for the preservation of the home: it makes the parties promise fidelity.) But

Precious few are the men who are worth the risking. Unfortunately,

More women succumb to strength of will than to strength of character.

Neither, in general, are women overcurious to enquire whether the strength of character.

Neither, in general, are women over curious to enquire whether the strength of the masculine will makes for good or for evil.

So long as the masculine will overmaster the feminine, the feminine mind is satisfied. Of course there are exceptions, but as a rule,

Women--whether young or old, married or single, strong-minded or weak-- are never happier than when they can depend on a man. Accordingly,

The lover or the husband who is weaker than, and depends upon, the woman, will some day rue his weakness and dependence. And yet,

To see a strong male at her feet--that is exquisite to the woman. So exquisite that

It is with difficulty that a woman refrains from exhibiting a man's servitude to others. On the other hand,

There is an element of intimidation in a resplendent woman. And of this she is aware.--Hence perhaps her power.

A woman will attain her ends by adroit finesse, where a man would blunder into open hostility. And

It is well that man should blind his eyes to feminine wiles, since,

Always a woman kindly pretends oblivion of masculine blunders.

The woman whose tastes and refinements are above her station, is in pitiable plight: she is too fastidious to espouse the men who would marry her; the men she would marry she rarely meets. For, The only thing that, to love, is insupportable is vulgarity. Since

Love, romantic love, the efflorescence and bloom of life, is besmirched unless tenderly touched.

To generalize passes the wit of woman; but in penetration she is preternatural.

What fascinates a woman is the man who unwittingly attracts her against her will. But such a man rouses a combination of emotions comprehensible only by women.

A woman's answer to an insuperable argument is: a look. And a most cogent answer it is. Indeed,

Speech is a woman's least effective weapon; rarely if ever does she resort to it:

In the affairs of life, as in the affairs of love, where men be concerned, it is upon her personality that she relies, not upon her speech whether written or uttered.

Her personal appearance is to a woman, what his personal honor is to a man: it must be immaculate; constant with the fashion of the hour; and strictly in accordance with her or his status in society. Accordingly,

Dress and demeanor--these form the code of feminine ethics. Even

Deception on the part of a woman is merely diplomacy;

Women deceive only be cause man is too blind to see. That is to say,

Since man in past ages has never allowed woman either freedom of action or frankness of speech, it is not to be expected of her that she should be all at once an adept in their use.--To her credit be it said that,

Generally a woman deceives only n order to arouse or to retain the admiration of man. For example,

Many a woman has surreptitiously made love to the man--and few are the men who have detected it.

Why this woman fascinates all who come within the sphere of their influence, and that women, does not, no earthly sage will ever know. As well ask what makes one man a Napoleon, another a poltroon. So, too,

It is impossible for a woman to say 'I will be loved,' as it is for a man to say 'I will be obeyed.'--Perhaps

Love and Power are divine miracles.

(At the risk of treading on delicate ground, ground off which I shall be hooted by the modern woman, I venture to say that)

The idea that a woman is the property of the man of her choice, rail as it as the woman may, has not yet been ousted from the feminine mind--and heart. Indeed,

So firmly implanted in the feminine breast is the idea of the ownership of her by the man, that it is to the man who assumes and exercises ownership that she clings. This is why

A woman easily changes her allegiance; since,

Allegiance, to a woman, means loyalty to the man who assumes and exercises ownership over her:

Let a man who a fractional part of a second evince the shadow of a doubt of his proprietorship--at once he undermines a woman's allegiance. Consequently,

It is folly for men to express amazement at the ease with which a woman will transfer herself and her affections.

A woman will transfer herself bodily over and over again, but only because the previous owner lightly esteemed, or weakly maintained, his ownership. As a matter of fact

In pristine days woman was, naturally and necessarily, the property, the chattel, of the man: marriage was not then a matrimonial syndicate of two: marriage meant that a woman sought a provider, a supporter, a defender; the man a mate for his delight, his comfort, and his solace, a keeper op is cave or hut, a mother and nurse for his heirs. And provision, support, and defense, being, in pristine days, matters of strength, prowess, or cunning, naturally and necessarily pristine man 65 gained him and kept him a mate by strength, prowess, or cunning; he regarded that mate as his by right of force, not as a partner in a compact. And

The most complicated of modern communities has no whit altered the relationship of man to mate, conceal though it may the origin and history of marriage. Finally,

No woman at the bottom of her heart has any objection to being owned. Indeed (though no woman would say it, a man may),

Every woman at the bottom of her heart delights to be owned, and tacitly and secretly seeks the man who she thinks will glory in that ownership and keep his property safe--not only from material harms, but from temptations to changes of ownership. In which last little fact lies a curious truth.

Women like to be defended against themselves. In this little matter men and women differ: That any other man should dare for one instant to covet or alienate (5) that most precious of his possessions, his mate, --nothing rouses to a higher pitch man's unappeasable wrath than this;

Against the man so daring, a woman's wrath is never roused: rather she regards him as one having discernment, and his daring is a commendable compliment to herself. In fine, and in short,

Allegiance, to a man, on the part of a woman, means, in her eyes, loyalty to him who properly exercises the right of ownership. In simple truth,

A woman gives herself to a man: to the man who proves himself worthy the gift, she is true.

And this is why women, all women, even the New ones, love being petted and admired and made much of all their lives: this but proves the possession of the gift to be appreciated. Besides,

The male is the dominant animal--not necessarily in his cave or his hut, --by no means, but in the stress and struggle of life; and women tacitly (though never openly) look up to and admire this dominance, even when exercised over themselves; since THIS, in turn, proves the masterfulness, the worth, of the man; albeit sometimes they rebel against it if carried to far. At least,

Unless a man continues to exhibit his appreciation of the gift by word as well as by deed, the woman is apt to imagine that that appreciation is on the wane.

(5) How women must laugh in their sleeves at the fact that one man may sue another in a court of law for "alienating his wife's affections"!

"Amore che muove il sole e l'altre stelle." --Dante

The beginning, middle, and end of love--is a sigh.

All things point to the infinite; and love more than all things else.

Complex as is the character of love, here are two things which love always does: always it

"Refines the thoughts And heart enlarges;" --Milton

Love dyes all things a cerulean hue. (What a pity it is not a fast color!)

Love is the most antimonial of emotions: it worships, yet it will not stop at sacrilege; it will build about its object a temple of adoration, then desecrate the fane; it will give all, yet ruthlessly seize everything; it delights in pleasing, yet it sometimes wittingly wounds; its ineffable tenderness often merges into an inclemency extraordinary; --symbol of universal duality, it is at once demonical and angelic.

Nothing stands still in this world, not even love: it must grow or it withers. And, perhaps,

That is the strongest love which surmounts the greatest number of obstacles.

Love to some is an intoxicant; to others an ailment. To all it is a necessity.

As is one's character, so is one's love. And

Perhaps the deepest love is the quietest.

Love is as implacable as it is un-appeasable. Nay more,

Love is merciless: as merciless to its votary as to its victim: For

Love would slay rather than surrender; would for-swear rather than forgo.

Some loves, like some fevers, render the patient immune--at all events to that particular kind of contagion.

Many lovers are vaccinated in early youth.

Only love can comprehend and reciprocate love. This is why,

If, of two sensitive human souls, the one loves passionately and the other not at all, the other is unwittingly blind and deaf to love's clamors and claims: the one may ardently urge; the other but passively yields:--

Only the famished understand the pangs of the hungered.

Of a great and reciprocated love there is one and only one sign: the expression of the eyes. Who that has seen it was ever deceived by its counterfeit?

Did ever the same love-light shine in the same eyes twice?

The light of love in the eyes may take on a thousand forms: exultant jubilation, a trustful happiness; infinite appeasement, or promises untold; an adoration supreme, or a complex oblation; tenderness ineffable, or heroic resolves; implicit faith; unquestioning confidence; abounding pity; unabashed desire. . .

He who shall count the stars of heaven, shall enumerate the radiances of love.

There is no Art of Loving (1); though, as Ovid says, love must be guided by art (2). Yet,

If love did not come by chance, it would never come at all.

(1) Ovid wrote not Art of Loving ("Ars Amandi"); he wrote on the Amatorial Art ("Ars Amatoria").

(2) "Arte regendus amor."--"Ars Amatoria", I, 4.

To each of us himself is the centre of the visible universe. But when love comes it alters this Ptolemaic theory. Yet,

It is a significant fact that love, which, more than any other thing in this world, is the great bringer-together of hearts, begins its mysterious work as a separator and puter-at-a-distance. For

When love first dawns in the breast of youth, it throws about its object a sacred aureole, which awes at the same time that it inspires the faithful worshipper.

Can only two walk abreast in the path of love? How many try to widen that strait and narrow way!

Love raises everything to a higher plane; but nothing higher than the man or woman who is loved.

Is there anything about which love does not shed a halo? Indeed,

Love is a sort of transfiguration. And when on the mount, we can very truly say, "It is good for us to be here".

If there is any sublunary thing equal in value to the true love of a faithful woman, it has not yet entered into the heart of man to conceive.

True love makes all things loveable,--except perhaps the chaperon.

Was there ever man or woman yet who was not bettered by a true love?

True love is ever diffident and fearful of its own venturesomeness (3). But this not every woman understands.

Too often the Phantasm of love and not the Verity wins the day (4). Women who seek a real lover should beware the overbold one.

(3) Cf. "La volupte Nous rend hardis, l'amour nous rend timides." --Voltaire, La Pucelle, Chant vi.

(4) See Leopardi, "Storia del Genere Humano", where the Verities of Truth and Love and Justice never leave the throne of Jove, but their Phantasms are sent down amongst men.

To merge the THEE and the ME into one--that is ever the attempt of love. It is impossible. Yet, perhaps

They are happiest who can longest disbelieve in the impossibility of this amatorial fusion; for it may be that such

Incredulity is favorable to romance.

Love is not exactly a sacrifice; it is an exchange. The lover, indeed, gives his heart; he expects another in return.

Love is like life: no apparatus can manufacture it; kill it, and nothing in the heavens above or in the earth beneath or in the waters under the earth will resuscitate it.

How many a forlorn human wight has tried to resuscitate love!

To such heights does love exalt the lover that he or she will live for days in the remembered delights of a look, a word, a gesture. But

One thing is impossible to love: love cannot create love; the intensest and most fervent love is powerless to evoke a scintillation of love.

Love may worship, it may adore, it may transfigure, it may exalt the object of its devotion to the skies; but it cannot cause that object to emit one ray of love in return.

Hate may be concealed; love never.

The greater the imaginative altitude of love, the lower the boiling point. But

Love cannot always be kept at high pressure.

The young think love is the winning-post of life, the old know it is a turn in the course. Nevertheless, it is a fateful turn.

In love, the imagination plays a very large part. And this may be variously interpreted. Thus,

By man, love is regarded as a sort of sacred religion; by woman, as her every-day morality. The former is the more exhilarating; but the latter is more serviceable. Indeed,

Love and religion are very near akin: both inspire, and both elevate. And

If faith, hope, and charity are the basis of religion, there never was such as religion as love. And

Love is the only religion in which there have been no heretics. Why? Because woman are at once its object and its priesthood.

Love, art, and religion are but different phases of the same emotion: awe, reverence, worship, and sacrifice in the presence of the supreme ideal.

Love knows no creed. Nay more,

Love acknowledges no deity but itself and accepts no sanctions but its own: it is autonomous. And yet--

And yet, love sometimes feels constrained to offer a liturgical acquiescence to the rubric of Reason. In short,

Between the prelatical domination of Reason and the recusant Protestantism of Love there has ever been strife. Or, in plain language, There are two codes of ethics: one that of the romantic heart; the other that of the practical head. Who shall assimilate them?

The heart, in its profoundest depths, feels that something is due to Reason; and Reason, in its highest flights, feels that something is due to the heart.

Is there a divine duplicity in the human soul? And yet, after all,

All love seeks is: love. Yet love little knows that

In seeking love, love enters on an endless search. Since

Love is an endless effort to realize the Ideal. For

Love always beckons over insurmountable barriers to uninhabitable realms; promises insupportable possibilities; lures to an unimaginable goal. Yet

Love has a myriad counterfeits. And

Men and women interpret the word differently. Even

Different women interpret the word love differently. Thus,

To one woman, love is as the rising of the sun: it shines but once in her whole life-day; it floods everything with its light; it brightens the world; it dazzles her.

To another woman, love is as the rising of a star: a fresh one may appear every hour of her life, and nor she nor her world is one whit affected by its rays. Indeed, one would hardly err if he said that

Many a woman really does not know whether she is "in love" or not. She is sought--that she perceives; but which of her seekers is worthiest, which most zealous, which merely takes her fancy, and which appeals to her heart--on these matters she meditates long--to the exasperation, of course, of the individual seeker. Accordingly,

Men, carried away by their own passionate impulse, detest calculation of the part of women:

Since HE stakes his all on impulse in the matter of love, says man, why should woman stay to consider? Foolish man! he forgets that

A woman always weighs a man's declaration of love--and legitimately-- and naturally; perhaps legitimately because naturally; for, once again,

What a woman stays to consider in the matter of love is, not the potency of the impulse of the moment, but the permanent efficacy of the emotion. Therefore it is that

Woman unwittingly obeys great Nature's laws.

Many imagine that love is a thing like a chemical element: with a fixed symbol 84 and a rigid atomic equivalent. And so it may be; but, like the philosopher's stone, hitherto it has defied detection in its elemental form. The fact is probably that

Love may be compared to a substance that is never found free, and which not only combines in all sorts of relationships with all sorts of substances, but also, like many another chemical body, takes on the most varied forms, not only in these relationships, but also under varying pressures and temperatures.--Or perhaps it would be better to say that

Love may be compared to a musical note: to the unthinking it is a simple sound; to the more experienced it is know to consist of endless and complicated harmonical vibrations; harmonizing with some, and making discord with other, notes by regular but unknown laws; differing according to the timbre of the emitter; reverberating under certain conditions; lost to the ear in others; and only responding to resonators vibrating synchronously with itself. Lastly,

There is a whole gamut of love.--Changing that simile, we may say that

Love is not like the sun: a unit, and practically the same wherever seen; it is like light: all-pervading, universally diffused, and reflected and refracted and absorbed in varying degrees and varying manners by various objects. And

Than a great and pure love, can anyone point to anything on earth greater and more purifying?

The lesser luminary perturbs the tide of human passion; the greater light draws it upward--none the less veritably because in tinted formless vapor. This is symbolical of love.

It is the nascent thing that evokes the keenest emotions: the bud--the babe--dawn--and the first beginnings of love. So Love, like sun-light, wears its most tender tints at dawn.

It still remains a mystery that, out of a townful of folk, two particular hearts should worry themselves into early graves because this one cannot get that other. Yet

It is almost enough to destroy one's faith in the uniqueness of love to see from how narrow a circle of acquaintances men and women choose their spouses. Were Plato's two half-souls separated by the diameter of the globe--that were lamentable.

The man often argues that esteem will grow into passion. The woman knows that the argument is utterly fallacious. Yet Unless passion is guarded by esteem,--as the calyx ensheaths the corolla, the former is prone to wither.

In youthful love, as in the enfolded bud, esteem and passion--like calyx and corolla---seem one and identical;

It is only the full-blown flower that displays its constituent parts.

Would that love could remain ever in bud!

To some love comes like a flash; to others as the burning of tinder.

In all, when real love is kindled, it devours all that is combustible. But

All love, like all fire, needs, not only ventilation but replenishing:

Unless the primal spark is nourished, it will not glow;

Stifle love, and it dies down. So

Even the love of a married pair, unless it retains something of the romance of courtship, is apt to go out.