riendship.

If only friendship would keep within bounds! How many women deceive
themselves into thinking that were devoutly to be wished! Yet probably,
as a matter of fact,

The very woman who avers she regrets that your friendship is not mere
Platonic, would resent the Platonism did it exist. Possibly not every
woman will understand this. Assuredly no woman will admit it. And yet,

It is impossible to conjecture in what an exchange of confidences may
terminate: it may be a kiss, or it may be a quarrel. But

Confidences are evoked rather by friendship than by love:

A woman will tell a man friend what she will not tell a lover.

Few lovers will understand this, fewer still will believe it. Yet it is
true, and the explication of its truth would be long and complex. This
much may be said:

Love idealizes; friendship does not. At the same time,

Love probes the innermost recesses of the womanly nature; and, until the
woman is wholly won,

The woman resents the inspection of love. She knows that,

To stimulate love, the woman must conceal, not reveal;

To stimulate love, the woman must conceal, not reveal. Furthermore,

Never was there a man who could be at once friend and lover.

Which is only one more proof that

Never will the sexes understand each other.

(3) I use the word in its purely conventional sense.

* * *

The male was ever the more susceptible sex. And for this reason,

Next to sympathy, flattery is perhaps woman's most effective weapon. And

No masculine shield there is which woman's flattery will not pierce. For

Man--man, alert in the hunt, keen in business, circumspect with his
fellows, terrible in war, man is pristine and simple in matters
emotional, and an easy prey to emotional wiles. In the long journey of
evolution from Amoeba to Man,

The masculine sex has developed muscle and mind;

The feminine sex developed and perfected the emotions. Accordingly,

Man's emotions are the primitive weapons of a savage;

Woman's emotions are arms of precision. Yet

Sometimes woman deplores the unequal contest--perhaps deplores her
too-easy victory. Since,

In domestic life, the weapons are laid aside, the pair are then
--presumably--unarmed and defenseless. For, though,

A mat has to be won by weapons,

Marriage should be a treaty of peace: thenceforth the combatants are
allies.

Many a man, when ensnared, has been amazed at the size of the meshes.

Only a woman