sterious little
thing called "a woman" should of her own accord put herself in his arms,
to be by him and by him alone cherished and nurtured till death them do
part--this indeed gives the mail heart a very sobering, a very ennobling
thrill; for beneath the heaving breast he so passionately loves, behind
the eyes into the depths of which he so passionately looks, there stirs,
he knows, that ineffable, that indefinable thing, a woman's heart; and
that TO HIM has been committed the keeping of that heart--this rouses in
him the manly virtues as no other thing rouses them. Strong is the man
who can live up to these emotions; sage the woman who knows what she has
aroused.

* * *

The philanderer or the flirt--to whom love-making and love-taking have
been a pasttime--is appalled at the seriousness of love when real love
is offered him or her. For often enough

The philanderer or the flirt thinks compliments and cajolery the food of
love: in time they discover that love is a veritable sarcophagus!

* * *

Many an accepted lover (both masculine and feminine) tries to make up for
coldness of passion by warmness of affection: a subterfuge of dubious
efficacy. For though

Affection seeks affection, passion is only appeased by passion. Yet

When one loves passionately, and the other languidly accepts, it is well
perhaps for that other sometimes to be a little "unfaithful to the truth"
(1) and to simulate an unfelt ardor. But, always this is of questionable
value, for

Love abhors simulation of anything even of ardor.

(1) Tennyson, "Love and Duty".

* * *

If mutual confidence is not established at the moment of betrothal, it
will never afterwards be established. And

Woeful will be the plight of those between whom mutual confidence is not
then established. For

Mutual confidence is the only atmosphere in which love can breathe.

* * *

An engaged man, like a hungry man, is an irascible man. And
How often a fiancee is sore put to it, not only to satisfy him, but to
pacify him!

* * *

A woman will often blandly ask why the two rivals to her hand should not
be friends! Yet it is significant of much that she does her utmost to
keep them apart! Indeed,

In no instance are a woman's tact and finesse so exercised as in playing
off one man against another.--And yet usually she delights in the task;
for

Being-made-love-to is to women what killing--whether of men or of
animals--is to men. In a word,