entirely lies with you, therefore, what impression on his heart and
brain you wish to create. I do assure you, Caroline, that it is
infinitely more agreeable when he thinks you all that is perfect, and is
passionately in love, than when he is mildly attracted by your golf and
your _camaraderie_, while his unemployed senses, left at liberty to
roam, stray to the more cunning young women of the chorus, who have
realized that some feminine allurements are not bad things to cultivate.
By all means play your golf and your tennis if they give you pleasure,
but try and make your partner feel that these things are a means to
securing the end he desires: namely, your company and companionship; not
that you are the means to his enjoyment of the game. Do not throw away
all mystery and appear a loud, jolly schoolboy, because, if you do,
naturally the other “boys” will treat you as one of themselves, or as a
sister--not as “another fellow’s sister,” to be considered, and whose
favors are to be schemed for.
There used to be an idea that girls must be warned about wolves in
sheep’s clothing, who wandered in society ready to lead them astray,
corrupt their morals, and break their hearts! But, if these fabulous
creatures ever existed, they only survive now in a few daring, youngish
married men who make it their business to flirt with girls. I need not
warn you against these, Caroline, because
[Illustration: “_Numbers of young women do the seeking and the
hunting._”]
I know that you are a proud little lady, and one, therefore, whose
instincts would tell you that the attentions of a married man were
merely an insult, disguised in whatever form they happened to be. It is
only the lowest and cheapest sort of girl who willingly encourages such
people, blazoning to the world that her vanity is colossal and her
self-respect _nil_. So we need not touch more upon this subject. If a
man is not free to marry a girl, his assiduous attentions are an
impertinence, to say the least of it.
Owing to the scarcity of men, as I said before, they are inclined to
give themselves airs, and numbers of young women do the seeking and the
hunting, while the poor youths are scared of being captured, and, when
they are secured at all, it is unwillingly. Must not that be a hateful
blow to the girl’s pride when she thinks of it!
The legitimate way is to render yourself as utterly desirable as
possible, and then fate will bring you the particular needle your kind
of magnet draws.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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