The Spinster Book | Page 4

with pretty
eagerness as to shade and stitch.
But in the after-years, when his divinity, redolent of the kitchen, meets
him at the door, with hair dishevelled and fingers bandaged, it is subtly
different from the chafing-dish days, and the crisp chops, generously
black with charcoal, are not as good as her rarebits used to be. The
memory of the silk and fine linen also fades somewhat, in the presence
of darning which contains hard lumps and patches which immediately
come off.
It has become the fashion to speak of woman as the eager hunter, and
man as the timid, reluctant prey. The comic papers may have started it,
but modern society certainly lends colour to the pretty theory. It is
frequently attributed to Mr. Darwin, but he is at times unjustly blamed
by those who do not read his pleasing works.
The complexities in man's personal equation are caused by variants of
three emotions; a mutable fondness for women, according to
temperament and opportunity, a more uniform feeling toward money,
and the universal, devastating desire--the old, old passion for food.
[Sidenote: The Key of Happiness]

The first variant is but partially under the control of any particular
woman, and the less she concerns herself with the second, the better it
is for both, but she who stimulates and satisfies the third variant holds
in her hands the golden key of happiness. No woman need envy the
Sphinx her wisdom if she has learned the uses of silence and never asks
a favour of a hungry man.
A woman makes her chief mistake when she judges a man by herself
and attributes to him indirection and complexity of motive. When she
wishes to attract a particular man, she goes at it indirectly. She makes
friends of "his sisters, his cousins, and his aunts," and assumes an
interest in his chum. She ignores him at first and thus arouses his
curiosity. Later, she condescends to smile upon him and he is mildly
pleased, because he thinks he has been working for that very smile and
has finally won it. In this manner he is lured toward the net.
[Sidenote: The Wise Virgin]
When a girl systematically and effectively feeds a man, she is leading
trumps. He insensibly associates her with his comfort and thus she
becomes his necessity. When a man seeks a woman's society it is
because he has need of her, not because he thinks she has need of him;
and the parlour of the girl who realises it, is the envy of every
unattached damsel on the street. If the wise one is an expert with the
chafing-dish, she may frequently bag desirable game, while the foolish
virgins who have no alcohol in their lamps are hunting eagerly for the
trail.
Because she herself works indirectly, she thinks he intends a tender
look at another girl for a carom shot, and frequently a far-sighted
maiden can see the evidences of a consuming passion for herself in a
man's devotion to someone else.
Men are not sufficiently diplomatic to bother with finesse of this kind.
Other things being equal, a man goes to see the girl he wants to see. It
does not often occur to her that he may not want to see her, may be
interested in someone else, or that he may have forgotten all about her.

[Sidenote: "Encouragement"]
There is a common feminine delusion to the effect that men need
"encouragement" and there is no term which is more misused. A fool
may need "encouragement," but the man who wants a girl will go after
her, regardless of obstacles. As for him, if he is fed at her house, even
irregularly, he may know that she looks with favour upon his suit.
[Sidenote: "Platonic Friendship"]
The parents of both, the neighbours, and even the girl herself, usually
know that a man is in love before he finds it out. Sometimes he has to
be told. He has approached a stage of acute and immediate peril when
he recognises what he calls "a platonic friendship."
Young men believe platonic friendship possible; old men know
better--but when one man learns to profit by the experience of another,
we may look for mosquitoes at Christmas and holly in June.
There is an exquisite danger attached to friendships of this kind, and is
it not danger, rather than variety, which is "the spice of life?" Relieved
of the presence of that social pace-maker, the chaperone, the disciples
of Plato are wont to take long walks, and further on, they spend whole
days in the country with book and wheel.
A book is a mysterious bond of union, and by their taste in books do a
man and woman unerringly know each other. Two people who unite in
admiration of Browning are