e was not
fully aware before that she was such a paragon of virtue, but believing
in the superior insight of Petrarch she said, "It must be so." Thus is
flattery always acceptable, nor can it be overdone unless it be laid on
with a trowel.

To flatter in rhythm and rhyme, with due regard for euphony and cadence,
is always safe, and is totally different from bursting out upon a
defenseless woman with buckets of adoration.

Laura evidently knew by intuition that her success in holding the love
of Petrarch lay in never allowing him to come close enough to be
disillusioned. She kept him at a distance and allowed him to do the
dialogue. All she desired was to perform a solo upon his imagination.

Clothes play a most important part in Cupid's pranks. Though the little
god himself goes naked, he never allows his votaries to follow suit.
That story of Venus unadorned appearing from the sea is only a
fairy-tale--such a sight would have made a lovelorn swain take to the
woods, and would have been interesting only to the anatomist or a member
of the life class. The wicket, the lattice, the lace curtain, the veil
and mantilla, are all secondary sexual manifestations. In rural
districts where honesty still prevails, the girls crochet a creation
which they call a "fascinator," and I can summon witnesses to prove it
is one.

Just why coquetry should be regarded as distinctly feminine I can not
say. Laura has been severely criticized by certain puritan ladies with
cold pedals, for luring Petrarch on in his hopeless passion. Yet he knew
her condition of life, and being a man of sense in most ways he must
have known that had she allowed his passion to follow its unobstructed
course it would have wrecked the lives of both. He was a priest and was
forbidden to marry; and while he could carry on an intrigue with a woman
of inferior station and society would wink in innocency, it was
different with a woman of quality--his very life might have paid the
penalty, and she would have been hoisted high by the social petard.

Petrarch was no fool--he probably had enough confidence in Laura to know
that she would play the part. I know a successful businessman in Saint
Louis, an owner of monopolies, on the profits of which he plays at being
a Socialist. This man knows that if he could succeed in bringing about
the things he advocates it would work his ruin.

He elocutes to the gallery of his cosmic self, for the ego is a
multi-masked rascal an