“This flame of sympathy you deem’d so bright Extinguish’d was—you may have thought by me. If so, I tell you, friend, ’twas lightly done. I but outblew you; and the moral is:— True flames, these women flicker with the wind. But use you breath enough, their natures yield. Yet blow for their sakes, not for your ideals. One seldom finds a sweetheart sweet enough To love her suitor’s pinings for mere whims. Nay, they alone our all-in-all would be; And so are jealous of our male ideals. Then, too, they are creative less than we, And cling more to the creature, love and serve Embodied life that may be seen and felt. You doubt me?—Test it.—Read that rhyme you wrote, Inspired by fancy.—Say so;—still they hint. ‘Ah, this was she, or she, whom once he loved.’ It may be, Grace does waive your love of truth. If so, ’tis better; more you seem her own.” “More likely,” cried I, “I and all my truth Seem like champagne,—a thing that pops and shocks, But yet enlivens when the hour is dull.” “She likes the shocking,” said he. “Know you not Most maids love mastery? and the closest cling To those who show the strength to hold them fast? Full many a suitor, when he wins his love, Will treat her merely like some petted puss, Caress, then cuff her, till she yield at last, Won solely through his wondrous wilfulness. If one defer to her, she pities him; And names him friend, because she feels him frail. Her favorite cavalier seems less a friend, At first, than foe who stays the brunt in time To seem to save her when she seems to fall.” “And should make him fall,” cried I. “’Tis not strange Such onsets numb her senses! Heaven preserve The world from women rear’d to feel but weak, Whose whole experience, nurtur’d not to think, Unfolds in passions pert of wishes dwarf’d, Afraid of truth and dodging to deceit! Let loose from home, their thing that ought to think Is dry and hollow as a sounding-board Behind a tongue that, like a weather vane, Creaks with the windy scandal of the town Till endless malice make one’s ear-drum ache, At one spot hammer’d sore, and o’er and o’er, With humdrum gossip of surrounding naught. Small gain are they, to crown our courtships grand, Prinked out with flowers and flattery! Wise man; Flowers draw the bee, and flattery the fool. One stings; the other—Laugh not, Elbert, nay, You know it well, what friendship craves; and these Light, simpering women, testing manhood’s woof By worthless nap that tickles their vanity,— O I shall wait some coming woman, I, Who needs no suing since in soul we suit; Nor ruling either.—Love shall rule us both.”