Hints for Lovers Part 12

In love, it is the man, generally, who makes a fool of himself.

Love (like murder) will out. But

Jill keeps her secret better than Jack. For

A woman generally controls love: a man is controlled by it. And Jill's very power of making-believe to be "fancy free" exasperates Jack.

It is a purely feminine ruse to apply a test to love--both her own and that of her lover--to prove it true. A man would as soon as think of applying a match to a powder magazine to prove it combustible.

Love in woman's eyes is the supreme and ultimate arbitrator. If she is loved, love in her eyes will condone anything--anything. For

To prefer honor to love is a maxim to women unknown. With them love IS honor. And therefore the maxim is meaningless--and needless.

It is a sort of legal--or rather charitable--fiction that women should surrender only to love. In fact,

Do not even the lightest of Laises and Thaises make a show of being swayed by love? And

No woman by too much love was ever spoiled. Man, remember that!

The logic of the emotions differs from the logic of the intellect. As to the senses--

Alack-a-day! The senses never reason.

Love sometimes wrecks its barque upon the rocks to prove that they harbor no mirage.

Love sometimes forgets that it is possible to probe too far.

Love, in pursuit of love, sometimes vivisects as unconsciously as a science in pursuit of life.

Women detect the dawn of love while it is still midnight with a man.

That is to say,

A woman knows a man is in love with her long before he is aware of it himself. Except perhaps in this once circ.u.mstance: when she herself is in love with somebody else. And this is a highly important circ.u.mstance.

Wholly to satisfy masculine infatuation is given to no woman. And perhaps

Wholly to satisfy feminine caprice is given to no man. So, sometimes,

The last refuge of an unrequited love is the belief that love will create love. Nothing can be more futile than such a faith. Yet

Love without hope, has its mitigations; but

How alleviate the pain of a love that mistook a simulated love for a true one?

A simulated love is a contradiction in terms.

Either one loves or one does not, that is the conclusion of the whole matter.

Love would rather suffer than forget.

Love would give the world to be able to exculpate a languid lover.

A pa.s.sionate love is perhaps always poignant.

Love disdains pity.

A wounded love carries a scar to the grave.

In love, when honor is lost, loss of shame soon follows. Then indeed the downward patch becomes precipitous.

To some, love never comes; to some, it comes too often; but the same love never recurs, as never a bud opens twice: happy he or she is who gains bud, blossom, and fruit. Since

The sweetest love is that wherein the odorous flower of pa.s.sion ripens into the nouris.h.i.+ng fruitage of affection. But

Love requires careful nature. And

The more exotic the love, the more difficult its culture.--True, An orchid may life on air. Yes; but how torrid and vaporous an air!

Your st.u.r.dy mistletoe thrives on the humble apple; a Cattleya requires a Columbian forest.

Youth wonders at the amatory successes of middle-age. Youth knows not that

In matters amatory, age is no handicap:

A girl in her 'teens will make love to a gentleman of forty--and vice versa. In fact

The indiscreet impetuosity of youth succ.u.mbs before the astuteness of age.