Artemus Ward described a charming woman as “born to make hash of men’s buzzoms”—which, though comprehensive, does not lead us very far, and sounds perilously near being a cooking recipe. Oscar Wilde said: “All charming people, I fancy, are spoiled. It is the secret of their attraction”—which, personally, I disbelieve absolutely. Spoiled people manage to get their own way, it is true, since the majority of us are so faint‐hearted that we find it easier to offer ourselves in sacrifice than play our part in a scène à faire. But the effect of a metaphorical foot on one’s neck is by no means a satisfying sensation, though we may endure it heroically. Longfellow described a charming woman as “when she passed it seemed like the ceasing of exquisite music,” and this, though pleasing to the ear, seems to say so much and mean as little as any modern drawing‐ room ballad. Shakespeare, perhaps, came nearer giving us a word‐picture of Charm when he wrote: “She told him stories to delight his ear; she showed him favours to allure his eye”; but even that description does not convey to us much more than the effort of a cook to fascinate a policeman. Charm is something more subtle than the ability to tell a smoking‐room story in a drawing‐room way and exhibit the best “points” Nature has given us with a fine semblance of doing so unconsciously. Perhaps the Dictionary gives the best definition when it explains Charm as being “something possessing occult power or influence.” Occultism seems the easiest explanation of the personal “sway” which some outwardly unattractive person wields over the most unlikely people, people who, by all reason and logic, policy and prudence, ought not to be thus fascinated. Love is easier to explain than Charm; or rather, perhaps, I ought to add, than that emotion which so often passes muster for Love, that emotion which, though it often ends in marriage, or divorce, or a six‐months’ despair, may arise from no more solid foundation than solitude, a moonlight night, and the sex‐appeal of two people in a “romantic” mood. But just as Time is the supreme test of Love, so it is also the supreme test of Charm. A woman who is as charming at forty‐nine as she was, say, at thirty, must necessarily possess something inherent in her nature, not recognizable as “beauty” perchance, which leads men nevertheless—and, what is infinitely more difficult, other _women—_ by a single hair. Charm, indeed, has nothing whatever to do with either beauty or youth. Its genius lies in being able to delude the world that it is both beautiful as well as youthful, no matter what adverse criticism artists may indulge in, nor how many cold, ugly facts Father Time may bring forward to dispel the illusion. Real Charm rises superior to both. It is a quality which, because it cannot be analysed, cannot therefore be destroyed. So it is easier to call it “Occult,” which the Dictionary informs us is a power “hidden from the eye and understanding.”