aldness. There are men--severe, stern
types of men--who are not disfigured, but improved, by spectacles. Just
imagine, if you can, the possibility of a bald woman with spectacles
inspiring a tender passion! So much for the infallibility of the
proverb, 'What's sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander,' so often
quoted by women when they are told that men can afford to do this or
that, but not they. Lady women-righters, please answer.

* * *

In the tender relations between men and women, novelty is a wonderful
attraction, and habit a powerful bond; but between the two there is a
bottomless precipice into which love often falls, never to be heard of
afterward. Happy those who know how to bridge over the chasm!

* * *

A woman never forgets, however old she may be, that she was once very
beautiful. Why should she? The pity is that she very often forgets that
she is so no longer. My pet aversion in society is the woman of sixty
who succeeds in making herself look fifty, thinks she is forty, acts as
if she were thirty, and dresses as if she were twenty.

* * *

I am not prepared to say that celibacy is preferable to marriage; it
has, however, this decided advantage over it: a bachelor can always
cease to be one the moment he has discovered that he has made a mistake.

* * *

Women are extremists in everything. Poets, painters and sculptors know
this so well that they have always taken women as models for War,
Pestilence, Death, Famine and Justice, Virtue, Glory, Victory, Pity,
Charity. On the other hand, virtues and vices, blessings and calamities
of a lesser degree are represented by men. Such are Work, Perseverance,
Laziness, Avarice, etc.

* * *

It is not given to any man or woman to fall in love more than once with
the same person. And although men and women may love several times in
succession, they can only once love to the fulness of their hearts.

* * *

Love does to women what the sun does to flowers: it colours them,
embellishes them, makes them look radiant and beautiful; but when it is
too ardent it consumes and withers them.

* * *

There are two terribly embarrassing moments in the life of a man. The
first is when he has to say 'all' to the woman he loves, and the second
when all is said.

* * *

If a man is not to a certain extent ill at ease in the presence of a
woman, you may be quite sure that he does not real