From a Girls Point of View | Page 2

mental corners--has had no part. It need not necessarily mean men who
have not encountered feminine influence, but it does mean those who
never have yielded to it. The natural and to-be-looked-for conceit of
youth may have been the barrier which prevented their yielding. There
is a time when the youth of twenty knows more than any one on earth
could teach him, and more than he ever will know again; a time when,
no matter how kind his heart, he is incased in a mental haughtiness
before which plain Wisdom is dumb. But a time will come when the
keenness of some girl's stiletto of wit will prick the empty bubble of his
flamboyant egoism, and he will, for the first time, learn that he is but an
untrained man under thirty-five.
This elastic classification does not obtain with either geniuses or fools.
It deals with the average man as the average girl knows him, and may
refer to every man in her acquaintance or only to one. It certainly must
refer to one! Misery loves company to such an extent that I could not
bear to think that there was any girl living who did not occasionally
have to grapple with the problem of at least one man in the raw, if only
for her own discipline.
You cannot argue with the untrained man under thirty-five. In fact, I
never argue with anybody, either man or woman, because women are
not reasonable beings and men are too reasonable. I never am willing to
follow a chain of reasoning to its logical conclusion, because, if I do,
men can make me admit so many things that are not true. I abhor a
syllogism. Alas, how often have I picked my cautious way through
three-quarters of one, only to sit down at the critical moment, declaring
I would not go another step, and then to hear some argumentative man
cry, "But you admitted all previous steps. Don't you know that this
naturally must follow?" Well, perhaps it does follow, only I don't
believe it is true. It may be very clever of the men to reason, and
perhaps I am very stupid not to be able to admit the truth of their
conclusions, but I feel like declaring with Josh Billings, "I'd rather not
know so much than to know so much that ain't so."
Conversation with the untrained man under thirty-five is equally
impossible, because he never converses; he only talks. And your chief
accomplishment of being a good listener is entirely thrown away on
him, because a mere talker never cares whether you listen or not as

long as you do not interrupt him. He only wants the floor and the sound
of his own voice. It is the trained man over thirty-five who can
converse and who wishes you to respond.
The untrained man desires to be amused. The trained man wishes to
amuse. A man under thirty-five is in this world to be made happy. The
man over thirty-five tries to make you happy.
There is no use of uttering a protest. You simply must wait, and let life
take it out of him. The man under thirty-five is being trained in a
thousand ways every day that he lives. Some learn more quickly than
others. It depends on the type of man and on the length of time he is
willing to remain in the raw.
You can do little to help him, if you are the first girl to take a hand at
him. You can but prepare him to be a little more amenable to the next
girl. His mind is not on you. It is centred on himself. You are only an
entity to him, not an individual. He cares nothing for your likes and
dislikes, your cares or hopes or fears. He only wishes you to be pretty
and well dressed. Have a mind if you will. He will not know it. Have a
heart and a soul. They do not concern him, because he cannot see them.
He likes to have you tailor-made. You are a Girl to him. That's all. The
eyes of the untrained man under thirty-five are never taken off himself.
They are always turned in. He is studying himself first and foremost,
and the world at large is interesting to him only inasmuch as it bears
relation to himself as the pivotal point. He fully indorses Pope's line,
"The proper study of mankind is man," and he is that man. Join in his
pursuit if you will; show the wildest enthusiasm in his golf record or
how many lumps of sugar he takes in his coffee, and he will evince
neither surprise nor gratitude for your interest. You are only showing
your good taste.
Try to talk