Rambles in Womanland Part 28

Steer clear once for all of useless people and parasites of all sorts--bores, who make you waste your time; indelicate people, who borrow money when they do not know whether they will be able to return it; swindlers, who know perfectly well they will never pay you back a penny. Elbow your way out of all those frauds--poseurs, spongers, leeches, fleas, and bugs--who try to fasten themselves to you.

Be generous, and help a friend in need; devote a reasonable portion of your income to the hospitals, charitable inst.i.tutions, and the sufferers from public calamities; after that, attend to yourself and to all those who live around you and depend on you for their comfort and happiness.

Bang your door in the face of people who, in your hour of success, come to treat you with a few patronizing sneers in order to take down your pride. Kick down your stairs, even if you live on the tenth floor, the man with an alcoholic breath who calls to tell you that, as you are a fortunate man, it is your duty, and should be your pleasure, to help those who have no luck.

Life is too short to allow you to play the part of a friend to the whole human race. Concern yourself about interesting and deserving people; cultivate the friends.h.i.+p of pleasant men and women, who brighten up your life, and that of useful ones, who may occasionally give you the lift you deserve. Attend to your business; carefully watch over the interests of those who have a right to expect you to keep them in comfort, and dismiss the rest, even from your thoughts.

CHAPTER XI

ADVICE-GIVING

Advice is a piece of luxury thoroughly enjoyed by the one who gives it.

If you want to be popular with your friends, do them all the good turns you can. Lend them your money if you have a surplus to spare, and which you can comfortably make up your mind to the loss of, but give them advice when they ask you for it.

People who are lavish of advice are seldom guilty of any other act of generosity. If, however, you cannot resist the temptation of advice-giving, be sure, at least, that you give it in time. People who keep on saying to their friends, 'I told you so,' are the most aggravating bores in the world.

If a little boy wants to venture on a dangerous piece of ice, give him a warning and advise him not to go, but if he disregards your advice and falls into a hole, rescue him and wait until he is quite well again before you say to him, 'I told you so.'

Of all your best friends, your wife is the last person to whom you should say, 'I told you so.' These four words have killed happiness in matrimonial life more than any number of blasphemous words put together.

A wife forgives a few hot words uttered in moments of bad temper or pa.s.sion, but there is something cold, sneering, provoking, blighting, a.s.sertive, presumptive in 'I told you so,' which gives you an unbearable air of superiority and self-satisfaction.

When you are already upset, dissatisfied with yourself, ready to take your revenge out of anyone who takes advantage of your awkward and unenviable position, 'I told you so' is the drop that causes the cup to overflow.

The amateur advice-giver is a nuisance, a fidget, a kill-joy, and an unmitigated bore. Men avoid him, women despise him, and children mind him until he is out of sight. To the latter he sets up as a model, and always begins his admonitions with the inevitable 'When I was a boy.'

Then they know what is coming, and giggle--when they do not wink.

Advice given by old folks to children sows as much valuable seed as do sermons on congregations, with this difference to the advantage of congregations, that they can close their eyes during a sermon in order to take it in better, whereas children cannot do the same for fear of being called rude and of being punished for it.

Among other advice-givers whom I have in my mind's eye, I remember the one who calls on me the day after I have given a lecture in order to make suggestions which 'I might use with advantage the next time I give this lecture.' Also the one who calls to advise me to introduce a 'reminiscence of his,' which I might use on the platform to ill.u.s.trate a point, and which 'reminiscence of his' I have heard for twenty years and know to be part of a cla.s.sic on the subject.

The chairman who, before I go on the platform, advises me how to use my voice in order to be well heard by all the members of the audience, a piece of advice which I thoroughly appreciate, as I have lectured only 3,000 times--well, over 2,500 times, to be perfectly exact.

I even remember one who criticised my p.r.o.nunciation of a French word in my lecture, and suggested his as an improvement.

CHAPTER XII

ON HOLIDAYS

Holidays are an inst.i.tution established to keep you reminded every year that one is really happy and comfortable at home only. Oh! the board and lodging, advertised comfortable and moderate, which you leave with pleasure because the board was the bed! Oh! the little house with creepers from which you 'flee' because you discover that the creepers are inside! And the sofas and chairs stuffed with the pebbles from the beach, and the bad cooking, and the smiles of the head waiter, of the waiters, of the chambermaid, of the hall porter, of the baggage porter, all of whom have to be tipped! And the extras on the bill! How you rub your hands with delight when at last you are in the train on the way to that dear home of yours, where you are going to sleep in your lovely bed, sit on your comfortable chairs, stretch on your soft sofa, eat the appetizing, simple, and healthy meals of your good cook, where, on a rainy day, you will go and take down a favourite book from the shelves of your library; where you are going to be all the time surrounded by your own dear belongings, able to look at your pictures, at your china; where you are going to put again in their usual places the photographs of all your friends; in fact, where you are going to live once more, after an interval necessary to your health, perhaps, through the rest from work and the change of air it has afforded you, but for all that an interval, nothing but an interval in life.

The only enjoyable holidays that I know are either those spent in a house of your own which you may possess in the country or by the sea, or those spent in travelling, making the acquaintance of new, interesting and picturesque countries; but these holidays are only within the reach of the privileged few.

Very often loving couples, fearing they should get too much accustomed to each other, part for a few days, just for the sake, epicures that they are, of experiencing the ineffable joy of meeting again and of proving to themselves that each one is absolutely indispensable to the other--a fact which, although they may be well aware of it, is always pleasant to be reminded of. The holidays are to the home what the parting for a few days is to the loving couples--a reminder of the priceless treasure which you possess, and which you do not always sufficiently appreciate.

Think of your children, too, especially of those young boys who are boarders at school or college and can only know the joys of home life during their holidays. How they would prefer going to their own homes, playing with their own things, looking after their animals, to being trotted out and taken to a hotel where children are not tolerated to do this or allowed to do that! When parents live in a house of their own, and in the country, it is absolutely wicked of them not to let their children enjoy their holidays at home. They should remember that if their children at school long for holidays, it is not because they are tired of their work, it is because they are homesick.

And young people just married always think that the best way of beginning the matrimonial journey is to have a holiday and travel, although, maybe, the thoughtful bridegroom has prepared a delightful nest for his bride.

'Where should I spend my honeymoon?' I have often been asked by young men not rich enough to go and spend it in the expensive resorts. I have invariably answered, 'Go home and spend it there, you idiot.'

CHAPTER XIII

EXTRACTS FROM THE DICTIONARY OF A CYNIC

(_After Jules Noriac_)

ALABASTER--Kind of beautiful white marble, so much used in novels for ladies' necks and shoulders that very little is left for ordinary consumption. Very rare now in the trade, still very common in poetry.

ALIBI--An aunt for wives; the club for husbands.

ARDOUR--Heat, extreme and dangerous. Those who gamble with ardour ruin their families; those who work with ardour ruin their health; those who study with ardour go to a lunatic asylum; those who love with ardour get cured more quickly than others.

ARGUS--Domestic spy. Juno gave him a cow to look after. With his hundred eyes he did not find out that the cow was no other than a woman, Io.

ATTRACTION--Force which tends to draw bodies to each other. Isaac Newton thought he had discovered the principle of universal attraction when he watched an apple fall. Eve had discovered it five thousand years earlier.

AUSTERITY--Self-control which enables a man or a woman to receive a call from Cupid without inviting him to stay to dinner.

BOUDOIR--From the French _bouder_ (to sulk). Coquettish little room where women retire when they have a love-letter to write or any other reason for wis.h.i.+ng to be left alone.

CANDOUR--A virtue practised by women who do not understand what they know perfectly well.

COLLECTION--Hobby. Men collect flies, beetles, b.u.t.terflies. Women collect faded flowers, hair, letters, and photographs.

DUENNA--Old woman who watches over the good conduct of young Spanish girls and of married women. In the second case, her wages are higher.

EGOTISM--Piece of ground on which Love builds his cottage.

LOVE--A disease which mankind escapes with still more difficulty than the measles. It generally attacks men at twenty and women at eighteen.

Then it is not dangerous. At thirty you are properly inoculated; it is, as it were, part of your system. At forty it is a habit. After sixty the disease is incurable.

TO LOVE--Active verb--very active--the most active of all.

MYSTERY--The princ.i.p.al food of love. This is probably why elevated souls have raised love to the level of religion.