they will roar. Deafness is terrible, so dull, so prosaic, so suggestive of old age; I have sometimes heard men wish their wives were dumb, but deaf never.
I remember once seeing a play at a Paris Boulevard theatre, frequented by the emotional portion of the Parisian public, in which the heroine, in the fourth act, appears with a thick veil over her face. She has had small-pox and she is sadly disfigured for life; she expects her lover, who is returning from the war. A year has elapsed since the curtain went down over the third act; she has just received a letter announcing his arrival safe and sound. She is happy, radiant; then she looks at herself in a glass and weeps bitterly; she has told him of her illness, but not of her misfortune; he knows nothing about it. Will he love her still when he sees her, or will he go away from her? The suspense is awful, and the situation dramatic. At last he appears on the threshold of the door, and stretches out his arms to her; she remains speechless, motionless, and the audience breathless. He rushes up to her to take her in his arms. With a dramatic gesture of the hands she bids him stand back. Then she tells him what has happened; but he is one of those worthy, undaunted heroes of the Boulevard melodramas whose love can triumph over all obstacles. He swears that it will make no difference to his sentiments; she lifts up her veil; then he falls at her feet and exclaims from the depths of his heart: 'I love you just the same, my darling.' (Tableau, cheers, and applause.) Of course he does not say to her that he finds her more beautiful than ever, and that the marks suit her style of beauty and all that sort of thing, but he swears again that his love has not altered, and the audience applaud this lofty sentiment, and the women say: 'That's a man!'
H'm! is it, though?
A friend who was with me on that occasion, and who is a bit of a cynic, said to me: 'There was only one possible dénouement for that play to give satisfaction to an audience that must go home perfectly persuaded that the hero and the heroine will be happy and in love with each other for ever and ever. The author missed a fine dramatic curtain. As the small-pox marks cannot be taken away, that man should have carried his love for that girl further than he did. He should have torn his eyes out in her presence. The sacrifice would have gone straight to her heart, and would have made the continuation of his love possible.'
'Well,' I said, 'yes, I see what you mean, but how do you know that the girl would have cared to marry a blind man? Maybe her love would not triumph over the difficulty.'
I may tell you that I knew a loving married couple who ceased to love each other, he because her hair turned white, and she because his turned outwards.
This is a psychological subject that may well puzzle the best sociologist.
I have not tried to answer the question, but merely intended to offer it for discussion.
However, this I will say to my fellow-men: 'I know how truly and deeply you love your wives and sweethearts, but let me advise you: Don't try the experiment; don't put your love to so severe a test. Take the greatest care of the said wives and sweethearts, and see that no accident happens to them, that no disease disfigures them or permanently injures their health. This is wisdom.'
CHAPTER XI
MAN VERSUS WOMAN IN LOVE
Man is capable of love as earnestly as woman is; but love is not the whole business of his life, whereas it is a woman's. When a child, she loves her doll; when a girl, her mother; when a woman, a man. She can feed on love and die of it. When a mother, she loves her children; when she dies, surrounded by beloved grandchildren, she may say that her life has been well filled.
I believe that a woman can love more than once. I have known widows remarry, and love their second husbands with the same devotion as their first.
A man really loves once only. I knew a man under fifty who was married three times. He was a good and devoted husband to his three wives, but he never really loved but the second. If he dies suddenly without having time to take all his precautions, the portrait of his second wife will be found on his heart.
The reason of this is that men and women love in different ways. A man loves because his whole being – heart, soul, and body – craves for a woman. A woman often gives herself to a man because it pleases her to be loved by him. For a man, love is the pleasure he feels in the company of a woman; for a woman, it is the enjoyment of the pleasure she gives to a man. A woman is proud to call herself a reward, and that is why all heroes appeal to her so much. Mirabeau was the plainest of men, with his face covered with smallpox marks, yet no man ever made so many conquests among women. Successful generals, explorers, great orators, authors, artists, singers, all appeal to women. They may not love them personally, but it affords them great pleasure to be loved by them. There is in every woman a craving for a man superior to herself, and that is why women who try to dominate men are such dismal failures.
To a woman love is sacred, her food, her life.
Never have a sneer at a woman or at a child. Whenever you feel sarcastic, exercise your talents on something else.
Never profane the words, 'I love you'; they may seal the fate of a woman; but when you have uttered these three words in great earnestness, and the woman has answered with that great religious, almost sad, smile that Victor Hugo called 'the smile of angels,' when, in a word, she is yours, place her on a pedestal, on an altar, and worship her. The world has nothing better to offer you.
A man can cure a woman of a man. Nothing can cure a man of a woman, unless it be that woman herself.
While on the subject of love and tender relations, let me ask a question of my lady readers: Which would you rather know, that the man you love had broken his allegiance to you, but kept his heart faithful, or that he had lost his heart with another woman, but kept his 'monastic' vows? A clever woman once answered me in the following manner: 'If that man was my husband, I would much rather know that his heart had gone from me for a time. If I was not married to him, I would prefer to know that his heart had remained faithful.'
Only I must warn you that if a man put this question to his wife, she would probably say to him at once: 'Jack, which of the two are you guilty of?'
'In ninety cases out of a hundred,' says Paul Bourget, 'for a woman to play her heart in the game of love is to play at cards with a sharper, and gold against counterfeit pieces.' How true! for when the game is over, society (which ought to be ashamed of itself in its treatment of men and women) says of the man, 'Lucky dog!' but mocks at the woman who has given way, puts her outside the pale when she forgets herself for the moment, and turns away from her when she gives way to despair. Poor woman! She cannot rebel, for if man is the cause of her downfall, it is woman who becomes her bitterest enemy. There is no pity in the breast of a woman for the woman who has fallen, unless she herself has had the same sad experience. The virtuous woman is inexorable, although her virtue is very often like a fortress which never had to capitulate for the reason that it never was attacked.
If I were a woman, oh, how I should hate women!
Madame de Staël said that what consoled her to know that she was a woman was that she would never have to marry a woman.
CHAPTER XII
COURTING IN FRANCE AND ENGLAND
The art of courtship as practised in France and England leaves the amorous Gaul sometimes at a decided disadvantage, and sometimes at a marked advantage, by comparison with the Briton. On the whole, I think honours are easy. Take the declaration of love. In France the foolish animal has to go on his knees at the feet of the adored one, who through her modestly drooping eyelashes can make an inventory of the suitor's least defects – of the bald spot on his crown, his languishing eyes, with their white turned up in the ardour of passion, maybe of the little wart which will obtrude itself for observation, especially at such a moment. The poor Frenchman is obliged to run the risk of making himself very ridiculous.
But now turn to England. There, if you would a-wooing go, you sit down comfortably, very much at your ease, with the beloved object of