impleton.

* * *

The way of man with a maid may have been too wonderful for Agur;
now-a-days the way of a man with a married woman would puzzle a wiser
than he.

What is the attitude to be maintained towards the too complaisant spouse
of an honorable friend? That is a problem will puzzle weak men without
end. Of that fatal and fateful dilemma when a wife or a husband falls
victim to the wiles of another, there are, for the delinquent, two and
only two horns (and it is a moot question upon which it is preferable to
be impaled): Flight--either from the victor or the victrix. Yet

To some it is no anomaly to pray God's blessing upon a liaison. But
these folk are to be pitied; for

A clandestine love always works havoc--havoc to all three. (4)

(4) Cf. Platus: "Malus clandestinus est amor; damnum 'st merum."

Will men and women never learn what trouble they lay up in store for
themselves by breaking their plighted troths?

* * * * *

VII. On Beauty

"La beaute' pour moi c'est la divinite' visible, c'est le bonheur
palpable, c'est le ciel descendu sur terre."
--Theophile Gautier

Beauty, they say, is but skin-deep. That is quite deep enough to enslave
mankind. As a matter of fact, it is much deeper: for, to say nothing of
health and good-spirits,

Beneath true beauty lies an admirable or a loveable character. And
yet--or, perhaps, and therefore--

If by some mischance beauty should arouse our resentment, with what
different eyes we regard it!

* * *

The feeling for beauty is probably more highly developed in man than in
woman. (N. B. Perhaps this is the source of the beauty of women.)
Nevertheless,

It is a question that perhaps will never be settled, how much value
should be placed upon mere beauty. For

Man soon tires of mere beauty. In fact, man, the inconstant creature,
soon tires of mere anything.

* * *

Beauty should never be analyzed. At sight of graceful neck, who speaks
of "musculus sterno-cleido-mastoideus"; at touch of moist red lips, who
thinks upon the corpuscles of Paccini?

* * *

More women are wooed for their complexions than for their characters.

* * *

Could women only know it, nothing can add to their charms: how
provokingly delightful is the uniformed demureness of an hospital nurse
beside the elaborate bedizenments of a woman of fashion!

* * *

The most beautiful thing known among men is: a good woman. And this is
not an anomaly.

* * *

S