Project Gutenberg's Reflections of a Bachelor Girl, by Helen Rowland
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Title: Reflections of a Bachelor Girl
Author: Helen Rowland
Illustrator: Henry S. Eddy
Release Date: March 19, 2010 [EBook #31700]
Language: English
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REFLECTIONS OF A BACHELOR GIRL
THE average man looks on matrimony as a hitching post where he can tie a
woman and leave her until he comes home nights.
STRANGE, how joyfully a man will pay a lawyer five hundred dollars for
untying the knot that he begrudged paying a clergyman fifty dollars for
tying.
REFLECTIONS _of_ A BACHELOR GIRL
_By_ HELEN ROWLAND
_Decorated by_ HENRY S. EDDY
"Just once more" is the Devil's best argument.
[Illustration]
NEW YORK
DODGE PUBLISHING COMPANY
220 East 23d Street
[Illustration]
Copyright, 1909, by
DODGE PUBLISHING COMPANY
[Reflections of a Bachelor Girl]
A MAN buttons a woman's dress up the back with almost the same grace and
alacrity that a woman displays in climbing a barbed wire fence.
[Illustration]
REFLECTIONS OF A BACHELOR GIRL
"JUST once more" is the Devil's best argument.
VARIETY is the spice of love.
THE only people who believe in a personal devil, nowadays, are the ones
who are married to that kind.
THE girl who marries for money is bought; but the girl who marries for
love is sold.
A WISE lover, like a good cook, is one who knows when the fire is out.
ALIMONY is the price of peace.
IN marriage, the love-light so often goes out as soon as the gas bills
begin to come in.
[Illustration]
THE only way to be happy with a husband is to learn to be happy without
him most of the time.
LOVE is just the shine on the jewel of matrimony; but, after all, the
shine on a jewel is the whole thing.
A MAN firmly believes that, if he can only keep his wife in the straight
and narrow path, he can go out and zig-zag all over the downward one
without falling from grace.
A GIRL is never so surprised when a man proposes to her as he is.
LOVE doesn't really "make the world go 'round," it only makes us so
dizzy that everything seems to be going round.
ENNUI is "that tired feeling" that a girl has when the right man doesn't
show up and the wrong one does.
[Illustration]
STRANGE, how joyfully a man will pay a lawyer five hundred dollars for
untying the knot that he begrudged paying a clergyman fifty dollars for
tying.
WHEN a girl marries, she exchanges the attentions of all the other men
of her acquaintance for the inattention of just one.
IT gives a girl silver threads among the gold to marry her ardent
admirer and find out afterward that she has tied herself to a
life-critic.
AS FAR as men are concerned, a woman's reputation for brains is worse
than no reputation at all.
ALAS, if husbands were only like sewing machines, and we could have them
sent up on trial!
[Illustration]
KISSING a girl, without first telling her that you love her, is as small
and mean as letting a salesman take you for a free ride in an automobile
when you have no intention of buying it.
DIVORCE is the "Great Divide," over which many men think they will pass
into Heaven.
A MAN can never be made to understand why a woman will pay fifty dollars
for a hat containing ten dollars worth of material and forty dollars
worth of style.
YOUTH will be youth; a young man chases temptation, folly, and chorus
girls as naturally as a kitten chases its tail.
FLINGING yourself at a man's head is like flinging a bone at a cat; it
doesn't fascinate him, it frightens him.
[Illustration]
MEN say they admire a woman with high ideals and principles; but it's
the kind with high heels and dimples that a wife hesitates to introduce
to her husband.
MARRIAGE is the black coffee that a man takes to settle him after the
love-feast.
LOVE is the feeling that makes a man turn on the hot water when he meant
to light the gas, go hunting for a collar when what he wanted was a pair
of socks, shave every day, and forget whether or not he has had any
lunch.
HAPPINESS is at high-tide at the full of the honeymoon.
SOMEHOW, a man who has been thrown over always lands on his knees to
another girl.
[Illustration]
A CONFIRMED bachelor girl is one who hasn't married--yet.
TOO many "flames" dry up the well-spring of love.
IT IS difficult for an old horse to learn new tricks--but an old _man_
hasn't sense enough not to try.
THE tenderest spot in a man's make-up is sometimes the bald spot on top
of his head.
NEVER worry for fear you have broken a man's heart; at the worst it is
only sprained and a week's rest will put it in perfect working condition
again.
A RICH girl need not bother to cultivate the art of conversation in
order to be fascinating. Her money will do the talking.
[Illustration]
NOTHING can exceed the grace and tenderness with which men make love--in
novels--, except the off-hand commonplaceness with which they do it in
real life.
ABOUT the only sign of personal individuality that the average woman is
allowed to retain after she marries is her toothbrush.
THERE are just three brands of masculine affection: platonic, which is
love without kisses; plutonic, which is kisses without love, and kisses
WITH love--which is almost extinct.
OF course women should marry; no home is complete without a husband any
more than it is without a cuckoo clock or a cat.
"HOME" is any four walls that enclose the right person.
[Illustration]
NO MAN can understand why a woman shouldn't prefer a good reputation to
a good time.
THE original fox was a man and the original grapes were the girls he
couldn't kiss.
A MAN'S desire for a son is usually nothing but the wish to duplicate
himself in order that such a remarkable pattern may not be lost to the
world.
IT isn't the girls whom he has loved and lost that a man sighs for; it's
those whom he has loved and never won.
LAZY men fancy that the wheel of life is a roulette wheel, on which
fortunes are won only by chance.
EVERY time a woman gives a man a piece of her mind she loses a piece of
his heart.
[Illustration]
WHEN a man spends his time giving his wife criticism and advice instead
of compliments, he forgets that it was not his good judgment, but his
charming manners, that won her heart.
A MAN never marries when he ought to; he waits until some woman comes
along and gets him so tangled up that he has to.
THE shortest way to Heaven or to Hell is via the Love Route, Limited.
IT MAY be bad form for a man to pay his wife compliments and call her
pet-names in the presence of other women, but it's awfully good policy.
MANY a foolish runaway match has been prevented by the fact that a girl
didn't have on her best silk stockings at the critical moment.
[Illustration]
REMORSE is the feeling a man has when the bottle is empty or he has
tired of the girl.
HUSBANDS are like Christmas gifts: you can't choose them; you've just
got to sit down and wait until they arrive and then appear perfectly
delighted with what you get.
THE beauty of variety in love or wine is that the moment a man discovers
a new brand or a new girl, he forgets all about the others and honestly
believes that he is tasting the real thing for the first time.
MATRIMONY should not be a prison but a privilege, and husbands and wives
should not be jailors but jolliers.
THAT lump which a man feels in his throat when he is about to propose is
the "don't" lump.
[Illustration]
A MAN may read everything that ever was written about women and yet not
know enough to avoid asking his wife a question when her mouth is full
of pins.
THE oftener a man falls in love, the more easily and gracefully he does
it; exercise seems to keep the heart in good working condition.
IT IS always a surprise to a woman when her husband sues for $200,000
for the alienation of her affections, which he never seemed to consider
worth two cents.
MATRIMONY is a revolving door, round which husband and wife follow one
another without ever meeting on the same side of any question.
MARRYING an old bachelor is like buying second-hand furniture.
[Illustration]
LOVE always must end sooner or later--usually sooner than the girl
expected and later than the man intended.
THE woman who insists on playing Solitaire in conversation is likely to
end by playing Old Maid.
FROM the number of virtues and accomplishments that a man expects to
find in one wife, you'd fancy he was marrying a harem.
DON'T worry for fear you may freeze a man's love out; the colder the
wind you blow upon it, the higher you fan the flames.
THE saddest thing about married life is the opportunity it gives two
otherwise agreeable people for telling one another the disagreeable
truth.
[Illustration]
THERE never was a man big and strong enough to get out his clean shirt
and collar and fix the water for his bath.
IT'S when the game becomes a trifle stale that a man begins to feel
conscientious qualms about flirting with a woman.
THE woman who pins her faith to a man won't find a safety-pin strong
enough to stand the strain.
IN love, the best way to erase one face from the tablet of memory is to
draw another across it.
A MAN'S ideal woman is the one he couldn't get.
A MAN may feel like a brute at taking a kiss from a nice girl--but it
isn't until after he's gotten the kiss.
[Illustration]
WHY should matrimony interfere with pleasure in this day of self-rocking
cradles, self-cooking ranges--and self-supporting wives?
MOST men write a love-letter as cautiously as though they were writing
for publication, or fame, or posterity.
THE man who breaks his social engagements with you before marriage, will
break everything from his word to your heart, afterward.
PLATONIC friendship is a ship that starts for Nowhere and nearly always
ends by being wrecked in the port of Love.
TO a man, marriage means giving up four out of five of the chiffonier
drawers; to a woman, giving up four out of five of her opinions.
[Illustration]
A MAN'S conscience is like his head; it never bothers him until "the
morning after."
A MAN'S shoulders are not always as broad as they're padded.
MEN say they hate anything loud about a woman; it must be disgust that
makes them always turn around to stare after a peroxide blonde.
THE saddest sight on earth is an old bachelor trying to sew on a button
with a blunt needle and a piece of string.
THERE are some men who, before marriage, will risk their lives to pick
up your parasol from in front of a whizzing automobile who wouldn't get
off the sofa after marriage to pick up anything you might drop, from a
hint, to a baby.
[Illustration]
A HUSBAND gets so used to his wife's conversation that after a while it
doesn't interrupt his reading of the newspaper any more than the
plunking in the steam pipes.
OF course men admire a circumspect woman above all things, but they
seldom invite her out to supper.
NOTHING bores a man worse than the devotion of the girl before the last.
IT'S rather sad to see how easily a man gets "that tired feeling" after
a love affair has become a bit stale.
A MAN may send you a gold-handled umbrella with your monogram on it in
diamonds and mean nothing but good-fellowship, but if he offers to put
it up and carry it over you for fear the mist will spoil your feathers
you may be sure he's in love.
[Illustration]
LOVE letters lead to all sorts of complications, but post cards tell no
tales.
ASKING a girl if you may kiss her before doing it is an insulting way of
laying all the responsibility on her.
A MARRIED man thinks that if he concedes to smooth his top hair and
carry a cane he is sufficiently dressy to go out anywhere with his wife.
BRIDEGROOMS have that sheepish look because every one of them is morally
certain that he is a lamb being led to the slaughter.
A WIFE sort of loses her awe and admiration for men after she has seen
her husband without a collar and with his face covered with shaving
lather and his top hair sticking up in tufts.
[Illustration]
A MAN seldom discovers that he hasn't married his affinity until his
wife begins to get crow's-feet around the eyes.
IF YOU want to be really popular pat a bald man on the head; call an old
man "naughty boy"; treat a young man with timid respect; cling to a
little man like the vine to the mighty oak, and tell a fat man how you
love to dance with him.
THE man who declares a friend innocent even when he knows he is guilty,
and defends a woman's reputation even when it is scarcely worth
defending, is not written down a liar by the recording angel.
ODD how a man always gets remorse confused with reform; a cold bath, a
dose of bromo-selzer, and his wife's forgiveness will make him feel so
moral that he will begin to patronize you.
[Illustration]
IT'S as hard to get a man to stay home after you've married him as it
was to get him to go home before you married him.
A MAN hates emotions; when a girl pours her heart out to him he feels as
if she has emptied the warm water jug or the molasses cruet over him.
A WOMAN will lie to anybody else on earth sooner than to the man she
loves; but a man will lie to the woman he loves sooner than to anybody
else on earth.
MATRIMONY is a bargain--and somebody has got to get the worst of the
bargain.
THE most uncomfortable thing about being married is that you can never
tell whether your friends are envying you or pitying you.
[Illustration]
ALL a man asks for in the love-game is beginner's luck.
POKER and love are both games of bluff.
A MAN has so many more temptations than a woman--because he knows where
to go and find them.
A MAN will sit on the edge of the bed, holding one shoe in his hand and
gazing into space for half an hour, and then send the cook into
hysterics and the waitress into nervous prostration because he has only
ten minutes left in which to eat his breakfast.
MOST bridal couples pile enough honey into the first month of matrimony
to last a whole lifetime if thinned out and spread on economically.
[Illustration]
WONDER if Adam ever scolded Eve for her extravagance in fig leaves.
A BABY'S kisses taste of stale milk, a boy's of jam, a young man's of
cigarettes and a husband's of cocktails.
OF course people can't carry their party manners into marriage; but if
they could, marriage would be more like a party and less like a prize
fight.
SOME marriages of convenience turn out to be about the most inconvenient
things that could possibly have happened.
WHEN perfect frankness comes in at the door love flies out of the
window.
MIGHT as well hail a Broadway car on the wrong side of the street as to
hail a man on the wrong side of his vanity.
[Illustration]
DIVORCE is getting to be as painless as dentistry. Two people pack each
other's trunks, genially shake hands farewell, wish each other luck, and
then go off to Europe while the lawyers fight it out.
A MAN forgets all about how to make love after ten years of matrimony;
but it's wonderful how quickly he can get into practice again after his
wife dies.
DON'T flatter yourself because he calls every Sunday evening that it is
a sign that he's getting serious. It may only be a sign that everything
else is closed.
NO doubt when a man puts his cheek against a girl's he always imagines
that it feels as smooth as hers does.
GETTING married is so easy that most men are suspicious of it.
[Illustration]
A MOTHER-IN-LAW may be the serpent in the Garden of Eden; but if it
hadn't been for the serpent whom would Adam have had to blame for all
his troubles?
WHEN two people marry they "lock their hearts together and throw away
the key;" then they begin looking around for some old legal nail to pick
the lock with.
LUCK in love consists in getting not the person you want, but the person
who wants you. If you don't believe it try being married to somebody who
is not in love with you.
A MAN'S idea of an engagement is a chance to find out whether or not he
really enjoys kissing that particular girl.
IT'S not his understanding of the plot of the opera that makes a man
appreciate it, but the "understanding" of the chorus ladies.
[Illustration]
A MAN thinks that by marrying a woman he proves he loves her, and that
therefore nothing more need ever be said about it.
THE average man looks on matrimony as a hitching post where he can tie a
woman and leave her until he comes home nights.
THERE is nothing so uninteresting to a a man as a contentedly married
woman.
A MAN'S sweethearts are like his cigars; he has many of each of them,
loves each one as tenderly as the preceding, and appreciates each
according to its expensiveness.
A HUSBAND can always find fault with his wife, but, then, even
archangels could pick flaws in one another if they had to drink coffee
at the same table every morning.
[Illustration]
MATRIMONY is, like the weather, mighty uncertain, and the happiest
people are those who are neither looking for storms nor banking on
sunshine, but are just willing to go along sensibly and take what comes.
IT MAY mean nothing, but it's very mortifying to a woman when she takes
her husband's dog for a walk and he tries to go into every corner
saloon.
IT'S easier to hide your light under a bushel than to keep your shady
side dark.
FUNNY how a married man who is trying to flirt with you always begins by
telling you what a trying disposition his wife has.
IT'S harder to get around a husband without flattery than to get around
Cape Horn without a compass.
[Illustration]
A MAN marries a girl for what she is, and then invariably tries to make
her over into something else which he thinks she ought to be.
WHEN an ordinary man does not smoke, drink, nor swear, be careful to
find out what worse folly it is that he is addicted to.
A MAN gets his sentiment for a woman so mixed up with the brand of
perfume she uses that half the time he doesn't know which is which.
HUSBANDS are like the pictures in the anti-fat advertisements--so
different before and after taking.
THERE are moments when the meanest of women may feel a sisterly sympathy
for her husband's first wife.
[Illustration]
A WOMAN may have a great deal of difficulty getting married the first
time, but after that it's easy, because where one man leads the others
will follow like a flock of sheep.
THERE are so many ways of punishing a refractory wife that the husband
who cannot find one is either a timid, mawkish creature or--a gentleman.
WHEN a lawyer is slow about getting a pretty woman her divorce it is
because he wants a chance to make love to her before she is in a
position to start a breach of promise suit.
SOME men feel that the only thing they owe the woman who marries them is
a grudge.
BLUE BEARD isn't the only bridegroom who ever went to the altar with a
closet full of dead loves on his conscience.
[Illustration]
IT isn't what a man can see through the holes in a peek-a-boo waist that
makes the garment attractive, but what he tries to see and can't.
A MAN who would turn up his nose at an overdone chop or an overdone
biscuit will swallow an overdone compliment with the keenest relish.
TOBACCO and love and olives are all acquired tastes; your first smoke
makes you sick, your first olive tastes bitter, and your first love
affair makes you unhappy.
MOST men fancy that being married to a woman means merely seeing her in
the mornings instead of in the evenings.
A REFORMED rake is like a made-over hat or made-over tea--he has lost
his style and his flavor.
[Illustration]
A MAN is always advising his wife to wear common-sense shoes, but that
isn't the kind he turns around in the street to stare after.
IT isn't the man who is willing to stay up late to talk to you, but the
one who is willing to get up early to work for you, that you ought to
waste your powder on.
WHEN a woman is pretty and married an optimistic man can always console
himself with the thought that perhaps she is unhappy because her husband
doesn't appreciate her.
MEN used to marry good cooks and flirt with chorus girls; now they marry
chorus girls and hire good cooks.
IT'S an ill wind that teaches a man the value of hatpins.
[Illustration]
IF WE could all pay the price of matrimony in a lump sum it wouldn't be
so bad; but paying it in daily instalments is what wearies us.
A MARRIED man soon learns enough not to let the barber put lilac water
on his hair; it's wonderful how sharp they get about exciting suspicion.
LOVE always comes to a man as a surprise; he feels like a person who has
been hit in the dark, and his one thought is for a means of escape.
IF THE average husband were half as attentive, solicitous and devoted as
his coachman, there would be fewer scandals of the drawing-room-stable
variety.
FLIRTING is the gentle art of making a man feel pleased with himself.
[Illustration]
SOME men are such bunglers at love-making that they cannot make a
sentimental remark without tripping over it, or take your hand or a kiss
without making you feel as though they had taken your pocketbook.
THE average man's ideas of what a woman ought to be are as old-fashioned
and set as two china vases on a parlor mantel.
IT takes a mighty dishonorable man not to lie to a woman about where he
saw her husband the night before.
NEAR-LOVE-MAKING is the scientific masculine method of saying a great
deal and promising nothing.
IT'S so hard to reform a man when he hasn't any great fault but just a
little of all of them.
[Illustration]
A MAN who devotes his youth to ambition and cuts out love, finds out
that he has been eating the bread of life without any jam on it.
IT'S so easy for a man to get engaged that he is always disagreeably
surprised when he finds out how difficult it is to get disengaged.
A MAN buttons a woman's dress up the back with almost the same grace and
alacrity that a woman displays in climbing a barbed wire fence.
IT isn't Cupid, but cupidity, that is to blame for those unhappy
international marriages.
A MAN is absolutely certain that a woman is perfectly proper when she
refuses to kiss him because in his simple, childlike vanity he can't
think of any other reason why she shouldn't want to.
[Illustration]
GIVE me a man with a dark brown past--one who has tasted the spice in
life's pudding, and won't begin to long for it the moment he has been
put on the matrimonial diet of bread and milk.
THE man who fancies himself completely understood is as unhappy as the
woman who thinks she is misunderstood.
IF St. Peter is really an old man, no girl over seventeen need apply for
admission to Heaven.
A KISS may be anything from an insult to a benediction; and yet a man
never can understand why a girl is indignant sometimes when she is
kissed and isn't at others.
EVEN a dead husband gives a widow some advantage over an old maid.
[Illustration]
THE kind of wife every man is looking for is one who can peel potatoes
with one hand, curl her hair with the other, rock the cradle with her
foot and accompany herself on the piano.
IT isn't conscience, but the fear of consequences that keeps a man from
trifling with a pretty woman.
POVERTY is a love charm; you never know how great a thing love is until
you haven't anything else in the world.
WOMEN take awful chances in matrimony--because that's the only kind they
get nowadays.
A MAN'S past is always quite past and his dead loves are so dead that he
wouldn't recognize them if he should meet their corpses on the street.
[Illustration]
A MAN always holds a woman at her own valuation; if she sets a high
price on herself he is eager to pay it, but he doesn't want anything
that looks as though it came off a bargain counter.
A MAN always considers himself mighty clever when he can glide through
the shallows of love-making without foundering on the rocks of
matrimony.
CHOOSING a husband is like picking out the combination on a lottery
ticket; your first guess is apt to be as good as your last.
A MAN'S idea of success is to be able to run his business by touching
the electric button at the side of his desk.
MAN is a mysterious chemical combination; add matrimony and you never
can tell what he will turn into.
[Illustration]
THERE is nothing which falls with such a dull sickening thud on a man's
vanity as his wife's dead silence after he has made one of his
characteristically brilliant remarks.
IT IS always a shock to a girl when her fiancé's sister takes her into
his den and she sees her photograph standing on the mantelpiece between
an actress in green tights and a cigarette ad.
A GIRL who has a brother has a great advantage over one who hasn't; she
gets a working knowledge of men without having to go through the
matrimonial inquisition in order to acquire it.
A MAN always pats himself on the back when he has composed a letter that
breathes devotion, but would not be negotiable in a breach of promise
suit.
[Illustration]
THERE is nothing so easy for a man as forgetting; he scarcely takes time
to throw a shovelful of dirt on the grave of a dead love before he is
off pursuing a new one.
TO a man love is only a side dish; to a woman it's the whole feast.
THERE are few men constituted strong enough romantically to stand a
daily diet of kisses, without getting sentimental nausea.
GENIUS, like anything else, needs distance to lend it enchantment; and
the longer you are married to one, the more distance you are likely to
give him.
BEFORE marrying a man, ask yourself if you could love him if he lost his
front hair, went without a collar, smoked an old pipe, and wore a
ready-made suit; all of these things are likely to happen.
[Illustration]
IT'S a funny thing about being in love, that the minute a man begins to
get serious he begins to get foolish.
A HUSBAND always expects his wife to look up to him, even if she has to
get down on her knees to do it.
COURTING is like cooking; you've got to be born with the knack; brains
don't take the prizes and theory doesn't count.
THE greatest proof that marriage is not a failure is that widows and
widowers are always anxious to try it again.
THE only way to be happy with a husband is to believe everything he
tells you--even when you know it isn't so.
IN love, a man's interest in the game is always deeper than his interest
in the girl.
[Illustration]
A MAN may like a girl ever so much until he finds out she likes him ever
so much; then like cures like. See "Simple Homoeopathy."
PROPOSING is like making welsh-rarebit; there isn't any reliable recipe
for it and you can only tell whether or not you have done properly by
the way it turns out.
AFTER a man has seen you cry two or three times it ceases to move
him--except to move him out of the house.
THE color of a friend's finger nails or his socks has very much more
weight with a snob than the color of his soul or his reputation.
IF a man would stick to his wife as he sticks to his seat in a street
car, there wouldn't be much need for an alimony bureau.
[Illustration]
AN old bachelor's looks may be well preserved, but his heart is always
embalmed.
IT takes an awfully big man to own up to his wife that he was a little
at fault in a quarrel.
WHEN a man gets a wife who makes him happy, he lays it to his
perspicacity; when he doesn't, he lays it on fate.
LIFE is a game in four rubbers: hearts are trumps when a man is very
young; clubs are trumps after he marries; diamonds are trumps as he
waxes rich and gouty; and lastly--spades.
TO flirt inartistically is like stepping on a woman's toes when you are
waltzing with her; it gives her real pain.
A MAN seldom marries when he loses his heart; he waits until he loses
his head.
[Illustration]
A MAN is like a cat; chase him and he'll run; sit still and ignore him
and he'll come purring at your feet.
WHAT a girl, who would be really popular, should do, is to wave a red
danger flag at a man and then start to run in the opposite direction.
THERE are some men who regard their wives' accomplishments with the same
patronizing complacency that they feel toward the tricks of the educated
monkey at the circus.
DON'T always imagine that the man and woman who walk side by side
without speaking to each other are angry; they may be only married.
MASCULINITY covereth a multitude of sins.
[Illustration]
THE man who whips his small son for lying to shield a girl, has a mental
vision as narrow as a Rocky Mountain path and side walls of dogmatism as
high as the Colorado Cañon.
SATAN and Cupid are chums, who go about together looking for people who
have nothing to do.
MANY a woman has divorced her husband for "desertion" who cheerfully
helped pack his trunk and pay for his railway ticket when he left her.
A MAN'S conscience is made of India rubber--warranted to stretch as long
as the fun lasts.
SOME men think that by putting on a silk hat and a white Ascot tie they
are disguised as gentlemen.
[Illustration]
THE average man is about as good a judge of women as a woman is of race
horses; he picks the favorites by their shape and color.
LOVE is like gambling; you want to be sure that you are a good loser
before you go in for the game.
A MAN'S idea of honor is so peculiar; he would die rather than steal a
friend's money or cheat him at cards, but he will steal his wife or
cheat him out of his daughter with perfect equanimity.
WHEN you see what some girls marry, you realize how they must hate to
work for a living.
FLIRTATION is like a cocktail with no headache in it, champagne with no
"next morning."
[Illustration]
ALL men are the same after ten years of matrimony; they all smell of
cloves and tobacco, talk in monosyllables, and tell the same stories
when they come home late.
A RECKLESS lover and an automobile scorcher may run all the risks--but
they have all the excitement.
OF course, bigamy is very reprehensible; but the man who marries two
women deserves a little credit for trying to make up to the sex for the
selfishness of the old bachelor who won't marry even one.
IN a domestic quarrel, it is not the one who can hold out, but the one
who can hold in, who usually wins.
THE boy who has been brought up to button his sister's frocks down the
back cherishes no illusions about women.
[Illustration]
A MAN is never content with a fortune of less than six figures; but a
woman is satisfied with one figure--if it has the proper curves.
IT'S a wise woman that knows how little she knows about her husband.
ONE advantage of a bull-dog over a baby is that you are not haunted by
the fear that he will grow up to be just like his father.
THE way to a man's heart is a zig-zag road, leading through his stomach
twice around his vanity, across his discretion and straight over his
determination not to marry.
FAILING to be "there" when a man wants her, is the greatest sin a woman
can commit--except being there when doesn't want her.
[Illustration]
THE best men always seem to get the worst wives and vice versa; that's
Nature's little way of spreading the virtues and the vices around
equally, like the jam and the butter on the bread.
A MAN'S idea of being "master" in his own house is asserting his right
to put his muddy feet on the best divan and his pipe ashes on the parlor
mantelpiece.
A WOMAN may scoff at her husband's religion, insult his friends, absorb
his income and pry into his secrets, and still retain his love, if she
regards his pipe and his razor as sacred.
YOU can always find somebody to share your money and your pleasures
with; but you've got to have somebody tied to you to share your sorrows
and troubles with; that's the excuse for matrimony.
[Illustration]
A MARRIAGE of convenience is the safety-pin with which a woman fastens
on her self-respect when the hooks of love are broken.
THERE never was a man so small that he couldn't call his two-hundred
pound wife "little one" with a perfectly serious face.
GOD made the first man; but He must have seen His mistake, for the
Scriptures say nothing of His having had anything to do with the rest of
them.
A MAN'S idea of a thrifty wife is one who can make lobster salad out of
left-over veal and a new hat out of an old fruit basket.
LOVE is the spur, matrimony the whip that drive a man to hard work and
successful accomplishment.
[Illustration]
THE longest way 'round the saloon and the stage door is the shortest way
home for some men.
THERE never was a man living who wouldn't marry Venus, and then expect
her to stay home and do the cooking.
ONCE a fool, twice married.
WHEN a girl marries she usually has to choose whether she prefers to sit
at the foot of a throne or to stand on a door-mat.
OF course, you can't expect two people to keep step all their lives to
the wedding march; but it's a pity the joy-bells get out of tune so
soon.
NINE tailors may make a man, but they can't make a gentleman.
[Illustration]
BEFORE marriage a man inquires, "What is that fascinating perfume?"
afterward, "What is that sickening stuff?"
IT isn't the troubles and sorrows they share, but the bridge parties and
midnight suppers they don't share, which separate most married couples.
THERE is no pity on earth so heartfelt as that with which the bachelor
and the newly-married man regard one another.
LOVE is a delirious spin in an automobile, marriage the accident of
which you are always in danger.
A WOMAN can get so used to that sort of thing that she would feel almost
neglected if some day her husband should fail to offer up the usual
morning and evening growl.
[Illustration]
A WOMAN will go on a starvation diet and have herself skinned alive in
order to retain her husband's admiration; but a man considers himself a
martyr if he resists a boiled onion.
THE sentiment a society woman wastes in baby-talk to her dog and the
money a society man wastes on gasoline for his automobile would keep
half a dozen babies in love and milk.
A CYNIC can always find flaws in a woman and weeds in a rose garden.
THE lower a man's forehead, the higher his collar.
NO matter how much a man dislikes children before marriage, after
marriage he always imagines that he is going to improve on the human
race.
[Illustration]
A GIRL'S idea of a proposal of marriage is so different from any she
ever gets, that, even after she is married she often wonders how it
happened.
VENUS may have been the most popular lady of her time; but it takes a
clever huntress, like Diana, to get any attention nowadays.
NOTHING makes a woman feel so old as watching the bald spot daily
increase on the top of her husband's head.
LOVE is not really blind, it is only nearsighted; and marriage is the
optician that furnishes it with a strong pair of lenses, warranted to
dispel all illusions and make defects perfectly clear.
WHOM the gods wish to destroy they first infatuate with a chorus girl.
[Illustration]
A WISE jilt wears his scalp beneath his waistcoat, and a wise girl keeps
her mittens carefully hidden; only a savage or a fool flaunts the
trophies of the love-chase.
COCK ROBIN isn't the only chap who ever promised to feed a girl on
jelly-cake and wine when he knew perfectly well that the moment they
were married she would have to go out and grub for worms.
PATCHING up a shattered love-affair is as foolish as trying to mend
cobwebs.
MATRIMONY is a see-saw; and the secret of happiness lies in keeping
yourself so carefully balanced that you neither fly into the air nor
come down with a sickening thud.
THE softer a man's head, the louder his socks.
[Illustration]
FROM the latest divorce cases it appears that as soon as a married
couple get rich enough to keep two automobiles they at once begin to
travel separate roads.
DON'T think your husband has ceased to love you merely because he has
begun to lie to you; it's when he stops taking the trouble to whitewash
himself that you have real grounds for that suspicion.
MANY a woman thinks she has married a hero until she tries to get him to
go out and reason with the janitor.
A GOOD husband may be the "salt of the earth," but he often seems more
like the pepper.
THE trouble with the marriage tie is that it's so tight that most people
get tangled up or frazzled out trying to loosen it.
[Illustration]
WHEN a young man rails at marriage, listen for the wedding bells; a
confirmed bachelor is too indifferent on the subject to be bitter about
it.
A MAN doesn't think he has had a good time unless he has a headache the
next morning.
THERE is no such thing as a confirmed bachelor in the countries where
harems are fashionable.
IT isn't tying himself to one woman that a man dreads when he thinks of
marrying; it's separating himself from all the others.
WHAT a man considers his "personal distinction," and a girl refers to as
his "charming personality," is often nothing more than a good tailor and
a smart haberdasher.
[Illustration]
BEING good is merely keeping up with the styles; what was immoral ten
years ago is only fashionable now, and what is shocking now will be only
fashionable ten years hence.
WONDER how many wives have been awakened from love's young dream by a
snore.
IT'S the men who are least particular about their own morals who are the
most particular about a woman's; if Satan should come up here seeking a
wife, he would probably demand an angel with gilt wings instead of a
nice congenial little devil.
APPEALING to a man's sense of humor when he has just lathered his face
for shaving, is about as effective as appealing to a cat's sense of
honor when she sees a chance to steal the milk.
[Illustration]
A MAN loses his illusions first, his teeth second and his follies last.
SOMEHOW, the wagon a woman hitches to a star always turns out a baby
carriage.
A GOOD lie in time saves nine poor ones next morning.
WHEN a girl refuses a man his chagrin is always tempered by his
astonishment that she could be so blind to her own good fortune.
THE troublesome part of love and everything nice is that it always must
end; but then that's the _nice_ part of matrimony and everything
troublesome.
THAT old saw about marrying a man to get rid of him isn't a joke. It's
the best way.
[Illustration]
ABSENCE may make the heart grow fonder, but it is more likely to make
the head grow steadier; there is nothing like total abstinence to cure
you of "that dizzy feeling" that comes from either love or cocktails.
BY THE awkwardness with which some men make love, you would fancy they
had learned how in a correspondence school.
AS lovers men are inclined to be general practitioners rather than
specialists.
IT MAY be possible to patch up a wornout love affair, but the darned
places will always rub even if they don't show.
IF a man would display the same patience in catering to a wife that he
does in coloring an old meerschaum pipe matrimony would be as pleasant
as a pipe dream.
[Illustration]
THERE'S an old superstition that it's bad luck to be married in May; why
not include the other eleven months?
THE only contract a man considers so unimportant that he will sign it
without first reading it over is the marriage contract.
A WOMAN whose husband gives her cause for jealousy should not shed
tears; she should shed the husband.
A MAN is never really old until his rosy hopes have turned gray and he
has begun to get wrinkles in his disposition.
A GOOD woman is known by what she does; a good man by what he doesn't.
RICH men and their wives are soon parted; matrimony plus money has such
a way of developing into alimony.
[Illustration]
ONE way to a man's heart is through your father's pocketbook.
LOVE is the sparkle in the wine; matrimony, the headache that follows.
BETTER be a young man's slave than an old man's nurse.
THERE is something about one cocktail that makes a man want another the
moment he has swallowed it; and there is something about one woman that
makes a man want another the moment he has married her.
A MAN plays his part in his first love affair as an actor plays his
first star rôle with fire and enthusiasm, but without poise or method;
later he becomes so technical that he can make his pretty speeches
backward without a single thrill.
[Illustration]
THE only common ground on which some married people ever meet is the
burying ground.
LOVE is like a good dinner; the only way to get any satisfaction out of
it is to enjoy it while it lasts, have no regrets when it is over and
pay the price with good grace.
HUSBANDS and wives may meet in heaven--but some of them won't if they
see each other first.
THE hardest part about the "next morning" is not the headache; it's the
effort to recall what particular story you told your wife the night
before.
POOR people don't have to economize on love, kisses nor enthusiasm; and
with plenty of those one can cover all the bare spots on the walls of
poverty.
[Illustration]
FLATTER a husband a little and he will adore you; flatter him too much
and he will soon begin to wonder why such a combination of Solomon and
the Apollo Belvidere ever stooped to marry an insignificant little thing
like you.
IT'S the hours a woman spends making frocks that her husband never looks
at, and the hours a man spends making jokes that his wife never laughs
at, that make the matrimonial years drag so heavily.
THE reason that a woman who takes the downward path has so much
attention is that there are so many men going that way.
A MAN makes a virtue of necessity when he prides himself on his devotion
to a wife who is so fascinating that he can't help it.
[Illustration]
A MAN'S wife, like any other sort of stimulant, ceases to have that
exhilarating effect after she has become a steady diet.
NO MAN knows the shock that a woman receives when she finds that she has
got to live up to a standard that is half angel and half cook.
MEN declare they admire common sense in a woman; but a physical
culturist with a perfect digestion and a thirty-inch waist hasn't a
chance in the world against a foolish, unhealthy little thing in a
French corset, a princess frock and open-work stockings.
THE ultimate proof of a man's love is the self-restraint he shows when
he allows a girl to run her fingers through his hair without putting up
his hand to see if the part is still there.
[Illustration]
A LITTLE knowledge makes a man a fool--but it makes a woman suspicious.
THE best way to cure a man's love is to return it with interest--and
then watch him lose the interest.
A MAN seldom escapes temptation because he is so careful not to let any
interesting temptations escape him.
SELF-SACRIFICE is the soul of love, and a real soul-mate is one who is
willing to get up and take the milk off the dumb-waiter, wait until you
have finished with the morning paper and give you the seat nearest the
radiator.
IT must be awful to live with a man after you have reformed him and he
has become so superlatively good that you don't feel superior to him any
more.
[Illustration]
GOOD husbands are like tracts, comforting but uninteresting; the other
kind are like dime novels, exciting, but apt to keep you in a constant
fever of dread, anticipation and curiosity.
IF a woman were like a serial novel and a man could read only one
chapter at a time, honeymoons would last forever.
A MAN doesn't demand common sense from a woman; he is satisfied with
incense.
WHEN a girl marries a man because he is the best she can do it is the
irony of fate to have him blame her because they are ill-mated.
DAKOTA is the State that cuts a woman's troubles in half--and kindly
takes away the better half.
[Illustration]
WONDERFUL how soon after marriage a man gets to look upon the morning
and evening kiss as one of his daily chores.
WHAT is the happiest state in life? Why, Dakota, of course.
COLLEGE boys are addicted to cigarettes and flirtations, bachelors to
cigars and sweethearts; it takes a married man to get real joy out of
anything so economical as a pipe or a wife.
MARRIAGE is the "commencement exercise" at which we take our diplomas in
love; thereafter, like the college graduate, we begin to learn how
little we know about it all.
HALF the divorces are founded right on the wedding journey, just as half
of indigestion is founded on too much sugar.
[Illustration]
WHAT do they know--about one another that makes every man who kisses a
girl warn her so darkly and impressively not to trust any of the others?
POVERTY is only a relative affair, after all; it is X minus the things
you want.
HEAVEN must be something like an afternoon tea, as far as the dearth of
men is concerned.
FIGURES do lie; especially if they are the ones that express a woman's
age--or the time a man gets home at night.
A MAN'S favorite way of answering a woman's accusations is to tell her
how pretty she looks when she gets excited.
MATRIMONY is the price of love--divorce, the rebate.
[Illustration]
WHEN a millionaire's heart is touched it makes a hollow sound.
THE woman who is wedded to an art and also to a man pays the full
penalty for that kind of bigamy.
IN the love game nobody knows exactly what he wants; but a wise man
tries to get what he thinks he wants and a wise woman tries to think she
wants what she gets.
A MAN isn't as curious as a woman--because usually a woman tells him
everything before he has a chance to become curious.
THE only original thing about some men is original sin.
HOLD on tight to your temper 'round the curves of matrimony.
[Illustration]
COLD water never cured a fever and a woman's indifference never put out
the divine fire of a man's love.
LOVE is a sort of club sandwich affair, composed of large slices of
selfishness, seasoned with passion, spiced with jealousy and covered
with thin layers of sentiment.
A MAN may admire a superior woman, but when it comes to marrying he
prefers a goose who will cackle at his jokes to an owl who is likely to
hoot at them.
A MAN always remembers a girl's first kiss the longest--because usually
that's the only one he had any trouble in getting.
TO keep a man's interest at high pressure deal yourself out to him in
homoeopathic doses; one only wants more of anything that one cannot get
enough of.
[Illustration]
THOSE who have tried matrimony, like those who have finished with the
morning paper, always say, "There's nothing in it;" but somehow that
never keeps the rest of us from wanting to see for ourselves.
WONDER if it never occurs to the woman who marries a man to reform him
that the sort of person who is headstrong enough to have made a "past"
for himself isn't likely to sit quietly by and let somebody else carve
out his future for him.
IT is so much easier for some men to go to the devil for a woman than to
go to work for her.
ALAS that the fever of love should so often be followed by a chill!
IN THE modern love affair woman proposes, God disposes and man--just
dozes.
[Illustration]
A MAN doesn't need to swear at a woman in order to express his opinion
of her; he can shut the front door behind him in the morning so that it
sounds just like a "damn!"
BY a man's vows of devotion ye shall not know him; the lover who
promises a girl a life of roses is usually the one who allows her to
pick off all the thorns for herself.
MAN is such a paradox that a woman is forced to make him believe that
she doesn't take him seriously--or she won't get a chance to take him at
all.
A MAN cannot keep his grouch and his friends at the same time.
THE woman who marries a dandy soon discovers that a thing of beauty is
not necessarily a joy forever.
[Illustration]
A MAN never selects a wife with any judgment or reason, because by the
time he has reached the marrying fever all judgment and reason have
fled.
IT IS a wise fool who rushes in and a fool angel who fears to tread when
it comes to love making; the woman who can't be coaxed can always be
captured.
IT MAY not be immoral for a girl to say "damn," but it affects a man
just as it would to hear a dove or a canary bird shrieking like a
parrot.
A MAN in the act of putting his wife on the train for her summer
vacation feels like the bad boy who has just heard the bell clang for
recess; he doesn't know exactly what he is going to do, but he knows it
will be something against the rules and hence very fascinating.
[Illustration]
IT'S awfully hard for a girl, with her mind all made up and her thoughts
at the altar, to sit silently by and wait for the love idea to penetrate
the thick layers of resistance that cover the masculine brain.
AS long as Satan can make a woman believe that it is possible to reform
a rake and make a roué over into a doting husband the ladies will keep
his majesty's business running.
IF anything could make a woman willing to exchange her curves for a
little muscle it would be that maddening, "There, there, now!" attitude
with which the average man greets her righteous wrath.
MANY a man would be dumbfounded if he should discover that the ideal in
his wife's heart didn't have a double chin, a bald spot and turned-in
toes just like himself.
[Illustration]
THE music of the spheres isn't loud enough to drown the din of some
matrimonial squabbles.
A KNOWLEDGE of all the ologies and isms isn't worth half as much to a
girl in the game of life as a knowledge of how to use her eyes and how
to keep her pompadour in curl.
WHEN a man discovers that a woman knows more than he does it strikes him
dumb--but not with admiration.
HEART-TO-HEART talks between platonic friends are as apt to lead to
lip-to-lip silences that Plato never dreamed of.
MAN may be the noblest work of God--in the abstract; but in a bathing
suit--well, it takes blind love to make a girl think he looks like that.
[Illustration]
A MAN'S surprise at the calmness with which his wife receives the
announcement that he has failed in business is only equaled by his
astonishment at her hysteria when a dress comes home that doesn't fit.
A GIRL always keeps a tender spot in her heart for the man she has once
loved; but to a man nothing is so cold as cooled affection.
YOU would fancy a girl were a species of ostrich from the amount of
flattery a man feeds her before marriage and the two-edged cynicisms he
expects her to swallow afterward.
THE average woman goes from the altar into total eclipse from which she
never emerges until she becomes a widow--since husbands never look at
their wives and other men don't dare.
[Illustration]
THE man who is most in love is most apt to get over it, just as the man
who drinks most champagne has the worst headache next morning.
ALL this talk about trial marriages seems so superfluous--considering
that marriage has always been a trial.
A MAN'S sense of honor is so peculiar that it gets out of working
condition the minute he comes near a pretty woman.
MAN--as far as his opinions and emotions go--is the noblest work of
woman.
A KISS and its thrills are soon parted--after the honeymoon.
EVERY woman is born an actress; and actresses are twice as attractive to
men as other women because they are twice women.
[Illustration]
A DARK brown "past" is sometimes a good insurance against a black
future; the man who has "seen life" is not quite so likely to be looking
for it.
HAPPINESS in marriage doesn't depend half so much on whether or not a
man keeps the Ten Commandments and goes to church as on whether or not
he keeps a pretty stenographer and comes home to dinner.
WHEN a man declares that he knows his own mind, his wife may sometimes
wonder why he seems so proud of the acquaintance.
MARRYING a widower is like inheriting an heirloom; marrying a grass
widower is like getting second-hand goods that somebody else has been
anxious to get rid of.
[Illustration]
MATRIMONY is a life job with long hours, small pay, hard work, no
holidays and no chance to "give notice" if you get tired of it.
AFTER all, a wife has her uses--even if its only as a protection against
other ladies' breach of promise suits.
A PRETTY wife in a soiled kimono affects a man like a pâté de fois gras
served on an old tin plate; it takes away his appetite--for love.
IT always surprises a woman when the son who has been tied to her apron
strings suddenly gets tangled up in some chorus girl's shoe strings.
A MAN'S idea of a perfectly loyal, devoted woman is one who will deceive
another man for his sake.
[Illustration]
A GIRL'S idea of business is a place where she can meet some man who
will take her out of it.
IN THE "relation of the sexes" a man is so likely to regard his wife as
the "poor relation."
NO MAN refuses to give a good wife all the credit she deserves; but some
of them are rather shy about giving her cash to the same amount.
A WOMAN on her summer vacation soon discovers that a husband is not "a
man of letters," but a man of off-hand notes and telegrams.
A LOVER looks at women through rose-colored spectacles, an old bachelor
through blue glasses, and a married man--through a microscope.
[Illustration]
A MAN always feels deeply injured when his wife refuses to believe the
story that he has worked at all the way up in the cab to make sound
interesting and perfectly plausible.
IT inspires a man with real awe and admiration, after he has spent all
day Sunday and broken half the family tools fussing over a fractious
lock, to see his wife come along and pick it with one hand and a
hairpin.
WHENEVER a man makes up his mind to give up anything, from a woman to a
vice, it suddenly becomes so attractive to him that he begins to take a
new and violent interest in it.
THE hard part of separating from a husband or wife for summer vacation
is trying to look sorry about it when you say good-by at the station.
[Illustration]
TRAIN up a son in the way he should go--and then watch him go some other
woman's way.
MAKING hay while the sun shines is very tame sport beside making love
while the moon shines.
THE dollar sign is the only sign in which the modern man appears to have
any real faith.
IT IS a mistake to propose to a girl with whom you have been mooning all
morning on the beach until you discover whether that pang you feel is
really heart hunger or only the other kind of hunger; the two have such
similar effects.
YOU can lead a husband to the restaurant, but you can't make him order
champagne--unless it's another woman's husband.
[Illustration]
LOVE seldom follows marriage, unless marriage follows love.
WHEN a man says that "circumstances" have forced him to break his
engagement with you, it is pretty safe to conclude that "Circumstances"
wears smarter frocks or has a more fascinating way of doing her hair.
SOME bright day women will learn that it is as impossible to revive a
man's interest in a girl whom he has ceased to love as to make him want
stale champagne with all the fizz gone out of it.
ALL the great tragedies are written about the woman who isn't married to
some man, but ought to be; when as a matter of fact the most tragic
figure on earth is the woman who is married to him and oughtn't to be.
[Illustration]
THERE are two kinds of masculine hearts; the kind like a peach, soft and
impressionable on the outside, but stony at the core; and the kind like
a nut, seemingly impenetrable, but sweet and satisfying once you get
through the shell.
A MAN doesn't object to a girl who smokes cigarettes, wears three-ply
collars and calls him "old chap" because he considers her immoral, but
because he considers her just a bad imitation of himself.
A WOMAN can do nothing wrong, as long as a man is in love with her, and
nothing right after he ceases to be.
THE only way to be happy with a man is to have such blind faith that you
can believe him when he vows he never kissed another woman, even though
the scent of the last girl's sachet still clings to his coat lapel.
[Illustration]
MARRYING a woman, after you have kept her ten years waiting, is like
buying a doll that has stood too long in the showcase.
WHEN a man asks a girl for a kiss, she _has_ to refuse him, but when he
simply takes it, she has to take it, too.
NOBODY scorns a woman for marrying money or a title; what they scorn is
the sort of thing she usually marries along with it.
THE woman whom a man idealizes is the one who keeps him guessing; who
never lets him see how the wheels go round at her toilet table nor in
her heart and head.
SOME men regard home as nothing but a "rest cure."
[Illustration]
TAXING bachelors only encourages them; a man always values anything
more, even freedom, when he has to pay for it.
THERE is a time of the year when a man will pay thirty dollars for a
Panama hat that makes him look like thirty cents, and thirty cents for a
drink that makes him feel like a millionaire.
THE knots in the marriage tie which rub a man the wrong way are the
"shalt nots"; those which chafe a woman are the "ought nots."
THE social swim at present appears to be a whirlpool, wherein a man gets
soaked with either weak tea or cocktails.
IN a man's opinion a kiss is an end that justifies any means.
[Illustration]
WHEN a man makes a woman his wife it's the highest compliment he can pay
her--and usually it's the last.
THE happiest wife is not always the one who marries the best man, but
the one who makes the best of the man she marries.
"WHO findeth a wife findeth a good thing," saith the Scriptures. Well,
that's what most men are looking for nowadays.
IT isn't the big vague vows he makes at the altar which a man finds it
so difficult to keep or to get around, but the little foolish promises
he made before he ever got there.
IT IS as foolish to try to reform a man after he has lost his front hair
as to try to tame a lion after he has gotten his second teeth.
[Illustration]
IT isn't the things a man says that proves he loves you, but the things
he tries to say and can't--the things that choke right up in his throat
and leave him sitting dumb and miserable on your parlor divan.
PHYSICIANS say the heart is an organ; but by the way some men manage to
grind out the same old love songs over and over again it would seem to
be more like a street piano.
ONE whiff of an onion will do more to kill love than the breaking of the
ten commandments.
ALL a man demands of a woman is a knowledge of what she ought not to do,
what she ought not to say and what she ought not to think. All a woman
need know in order to wear a halo in her husband's eyes is how to keep
it on straight.
[Illustration]
MARRIED men should make the most successful fiction writers, because it
takes a highly developed imagination to invent a different story for
one's wife every night.
DON'T marry a man merely because he can write nice long, soul-satisfying
letters; wait until you find out if he can write equally nice long
satisfactory checks.
ONE man's folly is often another man's wife.
THE woman who makes a man perfectly happy is the one who cares just
enough to respond when he is interested and not enough to be interested
when he doesn't respond.
MARRIAGE is like twirling a baton, turning a handspring or eating with
chopsticks; it looks so easy until you try it.
[Illustration]
A MARRIED woman is always impressionable, because she has become so used
to a total abstinence from flattery that a compliment from a man goes to
her head like wine to the head of the teetotaler.
REFINEMENT is what makes a man turn on his heel and go off to the club
instead of staying at home and having a good, old-fashioned row with his
wife.
THE man who keeps his sentiment bottled up and his money lying in the
bank is so narrow that he wouldn't take a broad view of anything, even
if he saw it on a bargain counter at half price.
THE biggest, boldest man that ever lived is built like a barge, and any
little woman who puffs up steam enough can attach him to her and tow him
all the way up the river of life.
[Illustration]
A MAN is always able to restrain his jealousy as long as his wife wears
untrimmed cotton flannel lingerie.
TAKE a spoonful of violet perfume, a pound or so of lace, a dash of
music, and serve under a summer moon--and almost any man will call it
"love."
A WIFE always feels perfectly safe in going driving with her husband,
because she knows by sad experience that he will devote both hands and
all his attention to the horses.
A MAN whom wild horses cannot drag from the path of duty will sometimes
get so tangled up in a pink ribbon that he will trip and fall right out
of it.
KISSES are love's assets, quarrels its liabilities.
[Illustration]
BEAUTIES of the soul may be very fascinating, but somehow they aren't
the kind a man looks for when he invites a girl out to dinner or for a
spin in his automobile.
AN OLD maid is an unmarried woman who has more wrinkles than money.
There is nothing like a halo of gold dollars to keep a woman attractive
to a green old age.
THE things for which there is "the devil to pay," are the only sort
which most men seem to consider really worth the price.
AS a soul-companion, the main difference between a bulldog and a husband
is that the dog can't talk--and the husband won't.
A MAN loves a woman first tenderly, then madly, then dearly, then
comfortably, and last dutifully.
[Illustration]
SOME men are born for marriage, some achieve marriage; but all of them
live in the deadly fear that marriage is going to be thrust upon them.
DISTANCE lends enchantment; but too much distance between husband and
wife is sure to end by one or the other of them finding another
"enchantment."
IN THE mathematics of matrimony two plus a baby equals a family; two
plus a mother-in-law equals a mob; and two plus an affinity equals--a
divorce.
IT IS something of a shock to the sweet girl graduate who has spent her
youth in digging up the Latin roots, studying the Greek forms and
acquiring a working knowledge of French, German and Hebrew, to discover
that the only language her lover really appreciates is baby talk.
[Illustration]
WHEN a man tells his wife that he is "sorry" about anything he has done
he doesn't mean that he's sorry he did it, but that he's sorry she found
it out.
FLIRTATION is like a pink tea, harmless but not exciting; love is like a
dinner with seven kinds of wine, satisfying and exhilarating but apt to
leave you with an uncomfortable feeling that you ought to have stayed
away from it.
A MAN'S wife is something like his teeth, in that he seems to be aware
of her presence only when it becomes annoying or painful.
ONE advantage in being a married man is that you are not haunted by the
harrowing suspicion that every pretty single woman you meet may have
matrimonial designs upon you.
[Illustration]
A MAN'S sentiment is like cologne; he always offers you the cheap kind
in large quantities.
A FEW years with the "George Washington" type of husband, who goes about
with a hatchet and is too honest to flatter his wife, must make her long
for a nice, comfortable companion like Ananias.
BEING clever at repartee means being able to say at the moment the
brilliant thing which you usually don't think of until ten minutes
later.
ANALYZING your love for a woman is like dissecting a flower; by the time
you have picked it to pieces and found out what it is composed of, its
perfume and beauty are all gone. Sentimental botanists get about as much
satisfaction out of life as dietetics out of a good dinner.
[Illustration]
A SUMMER resort is a place where a man will resort to anything from
croquet to cocktails for amusement and where a girl will resort to
anything from a half-grown boy to an aged paralytic for an escort.
WHEN a man becomes a confirmed old bachelor it is not because he has
never met the one woman he could live with, but because he has never met
the one woman he couldn't live without.
MANY a man who promises before marriage to lift every care off a girl's
shoulders won't even begin by lifting the ice off the dumb-waiter after
marriage.
ONE comfort in being a woman is that you have the right to cry; when a
man sheds tears the poor thing always looks and feels as if he had been
guilty of an immodest exposure of the soul.
[Illustration]
DON'T fancy a man is serious merely because he treats you to French
dinners and talks sentiment; wait until he begins to take you to cheap
tables d'hôte and talks economy.
A MAN likes a wife who appeals to his lighter side, but the average man
has so many lighter sides that no one woman could appeal to them all;
and even if she could there is always his darker side and a peroxide
blonde waiting around to appeal to it.
A WOMAN'S idea in marrying a man is that she may save his soul; his idea
in marrying her is that she may save his socks and his digestion.
PEOPLE who marry "for a joke" certainly must be blessed with an awfully
keen sense of humor.
[Illustration]
THE girl whose hair is a little too gold, whose chin is a little too
pink and whose laugh is a little too gay, apparently doesn't realize
that even a siren couldn't attract a man if she sang too loud.
THE "measure of a man" can usually be taken in half an hour's
acquaintance, but the true measure of a woman is something that is known
only to her husband and her dressmaker.
"THE worst of certainty is better than the best of doubt," says the
proverb; but when it comes to man's love for a woman the worst of
uncertainty is better for it than the best of security.
A MAN'S past is written on a slate which can be washed clean at will,
but a woman's is written in indelible ink in Mrs. Grundy's reference
book.
[Illustration]
MANY a woman who cannot be bought with any amount of gold can be won
with just a little amount of brass.
IF MEN were absolutely certain that angels wear the sort of Mother
Hubbard draperies in which they are usually painted instead of French
corsets and sheath skirts, not one of them would bother about trying to
get to heaven.
THE poet who sang of "woman's infinite variety" must at some time have
been the only young man at a summer hotel.
THE man who lets the tailor pad his shoulders is very contemptuous of
the woman who lets the dressmaker pad her skirts.
NOWADAYS love is a matter of chance, matrimony a matter of money and
divorce a matter of course.
[Illustration]
SOME men are so material that a beautiful sunset would remind them of
nothing but Neapolitan ice cream, and a flock of sheep on a green
hillside would suggest nothing more inspiring than lamb with mint sauce.
IN ancient times one drink of Lethe water made a man lose his memory and
forget even his name. Oh, well, one drink will do that nowadays--but it
isn't Lethe and it isn't water.
"JOY cometh in the morning"--but more often to the widow in second
mourning.
EVERYBODY has adopted modern improvements and new methods nowadays
except the stork, and he goes right along carrying on business in the
same old way. No wonder he has lost so much of his fashionable trade to
the up-to-date dog fancier.
[Illustration]
A PRETTY girl in a peek-a-boo waist and a Merry Widow hat on her way
downtown can sometimes create more excitement in the business district
than a Wall Street panic or a fire.
BEFORE marriage it fills a man with tenderness to have a girl slip her
hand confidingly into his coat pocket; but after marriage somehow it
fills him only with distrust.
IT is one of the mockeries of matrimony that the moment two people begin
to be awfully courteous to one another round the house it is a sign they
are awfully mad.
A MAN'S idea of being perfectly noble and honest with a woman is to be
able to make her think he loves her without indulging in any
incriminating statements to that effect.
[Illustration]
MOST women appear to think that "'tis better to have been loved and
bossed" than never to have been married at all.
DISAGREEABLE habits, like disagreeable husbands and wives, are so much
easier to acquire than the other kind and so much harder to get rid of.
A WIFE'S indignation at the women who flirt with her husband is often
tempered by her pity and astonishment that they should be so hard up as
to waste time on a man like him.
THE average husband has an idea that economy should begin at home--and
end at the corner café.
MANY a wife would be glad to exchange places with her cook on that
lady's salary days and her evenings off.
[Illustration]
A MAN'S idea of showing real consideration for his wife is to make sure
that she won't find out what he is doing before he does anything that
she would disapprove of.
THE first child makes a man proud, the second makes him happy, the third
makes him hustle, and the fourth makes him desperate.
WHEN a man declares that making love to a particular woman "wouldn't be
right," he really means that it wouldn't be safe; but he is too polite
to say that.
IN tragic moments we think of trifles; no doubt a girl who is being run
down by an automobile stops to thank heaven that there are no holes in
her stockings and a man that there are no incriminating letters in his
pockets.
[Illustration]
A MONTH of poker parties and summer girls can make a married man as
anxious to get his wife back home again as a diet of champagne and ice
cream would make him for a square meal of roast beef and baked potatoes.
BETWEEN lovers a little confession is a dangerous thing.
CALL a woman weak-minded and a man will wonder if you aren't jealous of
her; but call her strong-minded and he will take your word without
stopping to investigate.
THE wife who insists on being useful instead of concentrating on being
beautiful and amusing will soon find herself relegated to the shelf like
a medicine bottle, instead of being kept near at hand like a wine
bottle.
[Illustration]
THAT sad, patient smile one sees on the face of a married woman may not
come so much from heart-hunger as from a daily effort to listen to her
husband's latest joke at the same time that she pacifies the cook,
soothes the baby and looks for his lost collar button.
HOPE springs eternal in the feminine breast as long as a woman has
ambition enough to continue to curl her hair, and in the masculine
breast as long as a man has self-respect enough to keep on shaving his
chin.
THE things a man wants in a sweetheart are no more like those he wants
in a wife than the things he wants for breakfast are like those he wants
for dinner; yet he never seems to despair of warming over the light menu
and making it do for a regular diet.
[Illustration]
WHY is a woman always so jealous of her husband's stenographer when his
real affinity is just as likely to be somebody else's stenographer?
IT IS not a man's morals but the manners that make him comfortable or
otherwise to live with. A burglar or an embezzler can make his wife
fairly happy if he will be prompt to dinner, agreeable at breakfast and
will put up the portieres with a pleasant smile.
NOTHING makes a woman so green with envy and mortification as her
husband's ability to turn over and snore five minutes after they have
had an exciting quarrel.
OLD love, like old lamps, is apt to burn low and fitfully; it takes a
new heart interest now and then to keep up the glow of life.
[Illustration]
THE balance of power in the family usually goes to the husband or wife
who has the largest balance in the bank.
AMONG a man's sweethearts the first shall never be last, and the last
can always be sure that she isn't the first.
THE larger a man's girth the more expensive his flirtations; nothing but
orchids and grand opera tickets can make a girl forget real embonpoint
long enough to be sentimental.
MEN don't talk about one another as women do--perhaps because they find
it so much more interesting to talk about themselves.
A FRANK husband and a kodak fiend teach a woman that truth is indeed
stranger and more terrible than fiction.
[Illustration]
ONE touch of highball makes the whole world spin.
A MAN'S sense of honor is so peculiar that it gets out of working
condition the minute he comes near a pretty woman.
THE man who kisses a woman at the first opportunity is either a fool or
a cad; the man who waits for the second opportunity is a philosopher;
the man who waits for the third opportunity is a speculator; and the man
who waits any longer is--a freak.
THE girl who has entertained her fiancé every evening for a three years'
engagement may console herself with the hope that she won't be liable to
see so much of him after marriage.
'TIS best for a man to be square, but a woman is more lucky to be round.
[Illustration]
WHEN a man has waked up the whole family and half the neighborhood
flinging empty beer bottles at a cat on the back fence he feels so
refreshed that he can go right back to sleep and snore straight through
a fire or a thunderstorm.
IN the face of a man's childlike vanity it is so difficult for a girl to
decide to be ready when he arrives and thereby look as though she had
been waiting for him, or to keep him waiting and look as though she had
been primping for him.
A MAN will tell his troubles first to his God, next to his lawyer, then
to his valet, and lastly--to his wife.
A LITTLE "absent treatment" now and then is the best tonic for conjugal
love; an ounce of summer vacation is worth a pound of divorce.
[Illustration]
IT may cause a man sincere regret to get into a foolish flirtation, but
the only thing that causes him real downright repentance is not to be
able to get out of it.
TO fascinate an intelligent man pretend to be silly; to attract a good
man pretend to be naughty; to win a fool pretend to be clever; and to
charm the devil pretend to be a saint.
A GIRL loves to spell her soul out on paper, but a man can't see the use
of writing a love-letter when he can compress his whole passion into one
paragraph on a post card.
IT is a sad fact that two people who go into matrimony with the noble
idea of sharing one another's joys and ambitions so often end by sharing
nothing but one another's towels and brushes and grouches.
[Illustration]
A MODERN love affair is something like English plum pudding: it contains
very little spice and sweetness and is mostly a matter of "dough."
A FLIRT and his conscience are soon parted.
A MAN'S idea of constancy is being perfectly devoted to some woman who
is either dead or too indifferent to demand anything of him.
THE whole art of winning at either cards or love consists in keeping a
level head and not taking the game seriously; but, alas--when a man is
playing for money and a woman for matrimony they are bound to take it
seriously.
WHEN mothers-in-law come in at the door love flies out at the window.
[Illustration]
A CLEVER woman can sometimes make a fool of a man, but it takes a fluffy
little thing with a baby face and no brains or morals to speak of to
make him make a fool of himself.
FAINT praise ne'er won fair lady.
GOING through life without love is like going through a good dinner
without an appetite--everything seems so flat and tasteless.
IT is most provoking to a woman who is winning in a quarrel to have a
man suddenly turn round and take the argument right out of her
mouth--with a kiss.
WHERE do all of the lost hearts go? Well, most of the masculine ones go
"down where the Wurzburger flows."
[Illustration]
THE hardest problem of a girl's life is to find out why a man seems
bored if she doesn't respond to him and frightened if she does.
MENTAL science never cured a man of love-sickness, because in the
average man's love mentality plays so small a part.
A MARRIED woman has an awfully small chance of learning anything about
her husband's English vocabulary, for the simple reason that he never
addresses her except in baby talk or swear words.
A $30-A-WEEK clerk always feels it incumbent to take a girl to the
theatre in a taxicab. It requires a bona-fide millionaire to drag her
about in a five-cent street car with perfect éclat and no apologies.
[Illustration]
WHETHER a girl looks indignant or happy after you have kissed her
depends a great deal on how long she has been waiting for you to get up
the courage to do it.
TURNED-DOWN lovers tell no tales.
WHEN a woman says "There are no secrets between my husband and me," it
is a sure sign that she hasn't found out any of his.
THERE are dozens of systems for winning at roulette, but the only system
for winning at love is systematic flattery.
LOVE in a cottage doesn't seem so appalling when you come to consider
that there is such a thing as matrimony in a modern flat.
[Illustration]
NO MAN is a really artistic lover who hasn't enough dramatic instinct to
forget all other women while he is making love to one.
IF it weren't for the tiresome wedding journey and the monotonous
honeymoon, bridal couples could begin being happy right away.
EVEN though the dulcet iciness in her voice ought to be more effective
than a shriek of warning, a man will go right on telling his stout,
blonde wife that she ought to dress like the slim brunette next door.
THERE is something about a wife's tears that washes all the color and
starch out of a man's love.
WHEN married people can't come to terms marriage should come to a
termination.
[Illustration]
THE longest way round matrimony is the shortest way to happiness.
THE reason a man is so often tempted is because most of the time that is
what he is sitting around waiting for.
FROM the stony silence into which the average husband sinks after the
honeymoon there must be something almost unspeakable about matrimony.
A WOMAN looks upon her first kiss as a consecration; a man regards it as
a desecration.
TIME and tide wait for no man, but the untied woman has to wait for any
man who chooses to keep her waiting.
IN fashionable circles one wife and a dog constitute a "family."
[Illustration]
IT MAY be very noble of a man to have no secrets from the woman he
loves, but it's rather hard on all the other women he has gotten over
loving.
A MAN who can marry the right girl and won't marry her somehow always
ends by being made to marry the wrong one.
MANY a good husband hasn't the nerve or the courage to be anything else.
WIDOWS have all the honors without any of the trials of matrimony; a
live husband is sometimes a necessity, but a dead one is a real luxury.
MANY a man's idea of a wife is something decorative to be kept around
the house and only taken out on show occasions like the jewels in his
safe and the horses in his racing stable.
[Illustration]
IN olden times sacrifices were made at the altar--a custom which is
still continued.
OF course every woman knows that the man she loves is a "brute"--but
unfortunately that is one of the reasons why she loves him.
THE kind of woman who holds a man's devotion forever is like a silky,
self-satisfied Angora cat who takes her petting as a matter of course,
never returns it, and never gets on his nerve by asking for more.
IT isn't so much a man's sins and failings, but the air of conscious
pride with which he accepts her comments on them that a woman can't
forgive.
THAT will be a great novel in which the author can make the man who owns
the machine as fascinating as the chauffeur.
[Illustration]
EVERY man honestly believes that franchise in the hands of a woman is
like a loaded gun in the hands of a small boy--utterly useless and sure
to do damage to somebody.
WAD some power the giftie gie us to see ourselves as men's mothers see
us--but it wouldn't make us happy.
ONE reason why a dainty little thing like a woman wastes her love on
man-creature with a rough chin, stubbly hair and a smell of tobacco
about his clothes is that he is the only thing in that line.
A MAN will forgive a woman for almost any indiscretion sooner than for
leaving her hair in the comb and for breaking the Ten Commandments
sooner than for leaving her hot curling tongs where his fingers can get
on them.
[Illustration]
THE man who tries to mix his women friends has about the same
unfortunate results as the man who tries to mix his drinks.
'TIS better to have kissed and paid the cost than never to have kissed
at all.
THE word "court," whether it refers to the way her husband won her or
the place where he lost her, always has a pleasant sound to a grass
widow.
IF a woman could veil her thoughts and feelings as effectively as she
veils her face she would be so fascinating that no man could resist her.
WHEN it comes to love-making men are so unoriginal, that a sage, a fool
and a "lovers' letter-writer" all sound exactly alike.
[Illustration]
HUSBANDS are like Christmas gifts: you can't choose them; you've just
got to sit down and wait until they arrive and then appear perfectly
delighted with what you get.
THE only way to be happy with a husband is to learn to be happy without
him most of the time.
* * * * *
Transcriber's Notes:
Book title was added to top of text so that it did not begin only with
the quotes printed on the inside covers.
Page 97, "marying" changed to "marrying" (idea in marrying a)
Page 98, opening quotation mark added ("THE worst of certainty)
Page 115, "blond" changed to "blonde" (blonde wife that she)
End of Project Gutenberg's Reflections of a Bachelor Girl, by Helen Rowland
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