Hints for Lovers , livre ebook

Mint Editions - Arnold Haultain

Découvre YouScribe en t'inscrivant gratuitement

Je m'inscris

Obtenez un accès à la bibliothèque pour le consulter en ligne
En savoir plus

71 pages

English

Vous pourrez modifier la taille du texte de cet ouvrage

Obtenez un accès à la bibliothèque pour le consulter en ligne
En savoir plus

A propos
Informations
Extrait

Description

Hints for Lovers explores the romantic rules of engagement by providing a detailed strategy to help readers successfully navigate and improve their own personal relationships. It offers a light-hearted take on how to find and maintain love in any era.

The author frequently examines the fundamental differences between men and women and how they inform romantic expression. He dives into the psychology of relationships as well as the impact of intimacy such as kissing and making love. It’s a comprehensive analysis of courtship that ranges from dating to engagement and ultimately, marriage.

Published in 1909, Hints for Lovers is greatly influenced by the social constructs of the early twentieth century. The tongue-in-cheek anecdotes consist of many dating principles that are still relevant today. Arnold Haultain’s playful point of view makes for an entertaining and delightful read.

With an eye-catching new cover, and professionally typeset manuscript, this edition of Hints for Lovers is both modern and readable.

Sujets

Human Sexuality

Social Science

Sociologie, société et politique

Informations

Publié par	Mint Editions
Date de parution	01 décembre 2020
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781513266985
Langue	English
Poids de l'ouvrage	1 Mo

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0400€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

Extrait

Hints for Lovers
Arnold Haultain

Hints for Lovers was first published in 1909.
This edition published by Mint Editions 2020.
ISBN 9781513266541 | E-ISBN 9781513266985
Published by Mint Editions®
MintEditionBooks.com
Publishing Director: Jennifer Newens
Project Manager: Gabrielle Maudiere
Design & Production: Rachel Lopez Metzger
Typesetting: Westchester Publishing Services

T ABLE OF C ONTENTS I. O N G IRLS II. O N M EN III. O N W OMEN IV. O N L OVE V. O N L OVERS VI. O N M AKING L OVE VII. O N B EAUTY VIII. O N C OURTSHIP IX. O N M EN AND W OMEN X. O N J EALOUSY XI. O N K ISSES AND K ISSING XII. O N E NGAGEMENTS AND B EING E NGAGED XIII. O N M ARRIAGE AND M ARRIED L IFE XIV. O N T HIS H UMAN H EART

P LEA: C ONFESSION AND A VOIDANCE
“… aphorism are seldom couched in such terms, that they should be taken as they sound precisely, or according to the widest extent of signification; but do commonly need exposition, and admit exception: otherwise frequently they would not only clash with reason and experience, but interfere, thwart, and supplant one another.”
—I SSAC B ARROW
“The very essence of an aphorism is that slight exaggeration which makes it more biting whilst less rigidly accurate.”
—L ESLIE S TEPHEN

Chapter I
O N G IRLS
“A Pearl, A Girl.”
—B ROWNING
T here are of course, girls and girls; yet at heart they are pretty much alike. In age, naturally, they differ wildly. But this is a thorny subject. Suffice it to say that all men love all girls-the maid of sweet sixteen equally with the maid of untold age.
T HERE IS SOMETHING EXASPERATINGLY SOMETHING -or-otherish about girls. And they know it—which makes them more something-or-otherish still:—there is no other word for it.
A GIRL IS A COMPLICATED thing. It is made up of clothes, smiles, a pompadour, things of which space and prudence forbid the enumeration here. These things by themselves do not constitute a girl which is obvious; nor is any one girl without these things which is not too obvious. Where the things end and the girl begins many men have tried to find out.
Many girls would like to be men—except on occasions. At least so they say, but perhaps this is just a part of their something-or-otherishness. Why they should want to be men, men cannot conceive. Men pale before them, grow hot and cold before them, run before them (and after them), swear by them (and at them), and a bit of a chit of a thing in short skirts and lisle-thread stockings will twist able-bodied males round her little finger.
It is an open secret that girls are fonder of men than they are of one another—which is very lucky for the men.
Girls differ; and the same girl is different at different times. When she is by herself, she is one thing. When she is with other girls she is another thing. When she is with a lot of men, she is a third sort of thing. When she is with a man… But this baffled even Agur the son of Jakeh.
As a rule, a man prefers a girl by herself. This is natural. And yet is said that you cannot have too much of a good thing. If this were true, a bevy of girls would be the height of happiness. Yet some men would sooner face the bulls of Bashan.
Some foolish men—probably poets—have sought for and asserted the existence of the ideal girl. This is sheer nonsense: there is no such thing. And if there were, she could not compare with the real girl, the girl of flesh and blood—which (as some one ought to have said) are excellent things in woman.
Other men, equally foolish, have regarded girls as playthings. I wish these men had tried to play with them. They would have found that they were playing with fire and brimstone. Yet the veriest spit-fire can be wondrous sweet.
Sweet? Yes. On the whole a girl is the sweetest thing known or knowable. On the whole of this terrestrial sphere Nature has produced nothing more adorable than the high-spirited high-bred girl.—Of this she is quite aware—to our cost (I speak as a man). The consequence is, her price has gone up, and man has to pay high and pay all sorts of things—ices, sweets, champagne, drives, church-goings, and sometimes spot-cash.
Men are always wishing they knew all about girls. It is a precious good thing that they don’t.—Not that this is in any way disparaging to the girls. The fact is
A girl is an infinite puzzle, and it is this puzzle, that, among other things, tickles the men, and rouses their curiosity.
What a man doesn’t know about a girl would fill a Saratoga trunk; what her does know about her would go into her work-box.
T HE LITTLEST GIRL IS A little women. No boy knows this—and precious few grown up men. Thus
Many a grown up man plays with a girl, then finds himself in love with her. As to the girl—
Always the girl knows whether the play is leading: she probably chooses the game.
V ERY LATE IN LIFE DOES a man learn the truth (and significance) of that ancient proverb that Kissing goes by Favour. For
The masculine mind is the slave of Law and Justice:
Aphrodite never heard of Law or Justice: she was born at sea. That is to say,
Few are the men who at some time in their lives have not wondered at the vagaries of girlish complaisance: the foolish, the ne’er-do-well, the bully, the careless, the cruel,—it is to these often that a girls’ caress is given. And,
Curiously enough, that is, curiously enough as it seems to purblind law-loving man,—should the favored one be openly convicted, that alters not one whit his statue with the girl; for,
A girl, having given her heart, never recalls it not wholly: she may regret; she never recoils. In other words,
To the man of her own free lawless choice a girl is always loyal; to subsequent and subordinate attachments she is dutiful. So,
Even the renegade, if loved by a girl, will be upheld by that girl through thick and thin—secretly, it may be, for often the girl, nevertheless devotedly, and only under compulsion will he listen to the detractor: he may desert her, or, if he sticks to her, he may beat her; no matter: he holds her heart in the hollow of his hand. But, But,
Few things mystify poor law-abiding man than this, that the central, the profoundest, the most portentous puzzle of the universe—the weal of woe of two high-aspiring, much-enduring, youthful human souls, should be the sport of what seems to him the veriest and merest chance.
T HE UNCONSCIOUS SEARCH OF SWEET sixteen is for (in mathematical language which will not sophisticate her) the integral of love.—Yet
In the short years between sixteen and twenty a girl’s love will undergo rapid and startling developments.
A GIRL WITH LOTS OF brothers has more chances of matrimony than a girl with none: she knows more of men; especially of their weaknesses and idiosyncrasies. And
To know the weaknesses and idiosyncrasies of men is perhaps a wife’s chief task; unless it be to put up with them.
O FTEN ENOUGH THE FRECKLED AND fringrant girl wins over the professional beauty.
S OMETIMES GROWN - UP GIRLS ARE JUST as shy as little ones—and for the same reasons because there is no one who knows how to play with them.
Girls often play with love as if it were one of the amusements of life; but a day comes when love proves itself the most sensuous thing on earth. And
A girl is quick to discover the kind of love that is required of her. As a rule
Many a girl who has been sore put to it to prove herself whole-hearted. For of course,
Always every suitor expects whole heartedness. And this every girl instinctively knows. Indeed,
Is not a half-hearted love, or a half-hearted acceptress of love, a contradiction in terms?
A CERTAIN MEASURE OF THE sophisticated or unsophistication of a youthful damsel may be found in her manner of receiving the attentions of a stranger in a station different from her own.
Young women, themselves but rarely unsophisticated, view with a certain pitying sort of curiosity unsophisticatedness in men. And
A young man’s unsophisticatedeness it is a great delight to a woman to eradicate. Yet
A girl regards with complex emotions the man who has blossomed under the genial warmth of her rays; the flattery to own powers is counterbalanced by the evidence of lack of power in him.
A GIRL THINKS SHE DETECTS flippancy in seriousness. A woman thinks she detects seriousness in flippancy.
W HAT WOULD BE CONDUCT DECIDEDLY risqu é in a city miss, is often innocent playfulness in a country maid.
B ETWEEN THE AGES OF SIXTEEN and eighteen, girls play with love as if it were a doll; very soon after twenty they discover it is a dynamo. This is why
An early and clandestine engagement often works more havoc than happiness. For
Either, one of the parties to the concealed compact receives or pays attention which perturb the other; or, a subsequent and acknowledged lover looks askance at the previous entanglement. Since even if
A clandestine engagement (as is usually the case) is merely a flirtation with the emoluments which accompany a promise to marry, those emoluments are not nice things for a subsequent and avowed lover, whether masculine or feminine, to think upon. Lastly,
A laxity with regard to the claims of courtship is apt to breed a laxity with regard to the claims of wedlock. In short,
Flirtations, like clandestine engagements, are an affront to love. Accordingly
To the engagement-ring should be as attached as much importance as to the wedding-ring. Indeed,
A difficult and a delicate path it is that a girl has to tread through life—and often enough a dangerous. Yet with extraordinary deftness she treads it. She must win her a mate, yet has to pretend that the mate wins her. She makes believe to be captured, yet has herself to be intent on the chase. To be wooed and wedded is the law of her being, yet not for one moment dares she to exhibit too great an alacrity to obey that law; for she knows instinctively that an easy victory prognosticates a fickle victor. Is she abundantly endowed wit