ong and intimate acquaintance, for
often it acts spontaneously and at once; and neither the woman who
possesses it nor the man who succumbs to it can give it a name. For to
say that it consists in the effluence or influence of personality or
temperament, of affinity or passion, of sympathy or charm, is to say
nothing save that we know not what it is. All unknown to herself, it
wraps its owner round with airs the which to breathe uplifts the spirit,
and yet, may be, perturbs the heart, of man. Even its effects are
recondite and obscure. It allures; but how it allures now man shall
tell. It impels; but to what, does not appear. It rouses all manner of
hopes, stirs sleeping ambition, and desires and aspirations unappeasable;
but for what purport or to what end, none stays to inquire . It incites;
sometimes it enthralls. It innervates; it exhaults. Under its spell,
reason is flung to the winds, and matters of great mundane moment are
trivial and of no account: for it bewilders the wit and snatches the
judgment of sane and rational men. It is most powerful in youth; it is
most powerful upon youth; yet some retain it till far on in years, and no
age but feels its sway:--a veiled and mysterious force; sometimes
daemonical, often divine: at once the delight and the despair of man.
After all,

The man who declares he understands women, declares his folly. For,

If woman were not such a mystery, she would not be such an attraction.
For again,

What is known is ignored. (But woman need have no cause for
apprehension.) Besides,

Men may be classified; women never. This is why

Generalizing in the case of women is useless; since

Woman is a species of which every woman is a variety. And every man must
make up his mind to this, that

Every woman is a study in herself. However,

If women were comprehensible to men, men and women would be friends, not
lovers (But the race is safe). The simple fact is that

Womanliness is the supreme attraction, in however fair or however frail a
personality it is embodied. And

The sacred function of all womanhood is to kindle in man the divine spark
by means 30 of the mystic flame that burns ever in the vestal breast.

* * *

Every true woman's orbit is determined by two forces: Love and Duty.
Which is another way of saying that

Women, like the lark, are true to the kindred points of heaven and home.
But,

It is only when the two foci are coincident and identical th