Part 30

Right courtship will harmonize natural discordants, much more concordants, still more those already in love; which only some serious causes can rupture. The whole power of this love element is enlisted in its perpetuity, as are all the self-interests of both. As nature's health provisions are so perfect that only its great and long-continued outrage can break it; so her conjugal are so numerous and perfect that but for outrageous violation of her love laws all who once begin can and will grow more and more affectionate and happy every day.

Any man who can begin to elicit any woman's love, can perfectly infatuate her more and more, solely by courting her right; and all women who once start a man's love--no very difficult achievement--can get out of him, and do with him, anything possible she pleases. The charming and fascinating power of serpents over birds is as nothing compared with that a woman can wield over a man, and he over her. Ladies, recall your love hey-day. You had your lover perfectly spell-bound. He literally knew not what he did or would do. With what alacrity he sprang to indulge your every wish, at whatever cost, and do exactly as you desired! If you had only courted him just right, he would have continued to grow still more so till now. This is equally true of a man's power over every woman who once begins to love him. What would you give to again wield that same bewitching wand?

How to Carry on Courtship.

Intuition, our own selfhood, is nature's highest teacher, and infallible; and tells all, by her "still, small voice within," whether and just wherein they are making love right or wrong. Every false step forewarns all against itself; and great is their fall who stumble. Courtship has its own inherent consciousness, which must be kept inviolate.

Then throw yourself, O courting youth, upon your own interior sense of propriety and right, as to both the beginning and conducting of courtship, after learning all you can from these pages, and have no fears as to results, but quietly bide them, in the most perfect assurance of their happy eventuality!

"What can I do or omit to advance my suit? prevent dismissal? make my very best impression? guarantee acceptance? touch my idol's heart? court just right?" This is what all true courters say.

Cultivate and manifest whatever qualities you would awaken. You inspire in the one you court the precise feeling and traits you yourself experience. This law effects this result. Every faculty in either awakens itself in the other. This is just as sure as gravity itself. Hence your success must come from within, depends upon yourself, not the one courted.

Study the specialties, likes and dislikes in particular, of the one courted, and humor and adapt yourself to them.

Be extra careful not to prejudice him or her against you by awakening any faculty in reverse. Thus whatever rouses the other's resistance against you, antagonizes all the other faculties, and proportionally turns love for you into hatred. Whatever wounds ambition reverses all the other feelings, to your injury; what delights it, turns them in your favor. All the faculties create, and their action constitutes human nature; which lovers will do right well to study. To give an illustration:

A Case to the Point.

An elderly man with points in his favor, having selected a woman eighteen years younger, but most intelligent and feminine, had two young rivals, each having more points in their favor, and came to his final test. She thought much of having plenty of money. They saw they could "cut him out" by showing her that he was poor; she till then thinking his means ample. All four met around her table, and proved his poverty. His rivals retired, sure that they had made "his cake dough," leaving him with her. It was his turning-point. He addressed himself right to her affections, saying little about money matters, but protesting an amount of devotion for her to which she knew they were strangers; and left his suit right on this one point; adding:

"You know I can make money; know how intensely I esteem, admire, idolize, and love you. Will not my admitted greater affection, with my earnings, do more for you than they with more money, but less love?"

Her clear head saw the point. Her heart melted into his. She said "yes." He triumphed by this affectional spirit alone over their much greater availability.

Manifesting the domestic affections and virtues, a warm, gushing friendly nature, fondness for children and home, inspires a man's love most of all, while evincing talents by a man peculiarly enamors woman.

Relations, you shall not interfere, where even parents may not. Make your own matches, and let others make theirs; especially if you have bungled your own. One such bungle is one too many.

The parties are betrothed. Their marriage is "fore-ordained" by themselves, its only rightful umpires, which all right-minded outsiders will try to promote, not prevent. How despicable to separate husbands and wives! Yet is not parting those married by a love-spirit, equally so? Its mere legal form can but increase its validity, not create it. Marriage is a divine institution, and consists in their own personal betrothal. Hence breaking up a true love-union before its legal consummation, is just as bad as parting loving husband and wife; which is monstrous. All lovers who allow it are its wicked partakers.

Choice of Associates.

The first point to be considered on this subject is a careful choice of associates, which will often, in the end, save future unhappiness and discomfort, since, as Goldsmith so truthfully puts it, "Love is often an involuntary passion placed upon our companions without our consent, and frequently conferred without even our previous esteem."

This last most unhappy state of affairs may, to a great extent, be avoided by this careful choosing of companions. Especially is this true on the part of the lady, since, from the nature and constitution of society, an unsuitable acquaintance, friendship, or alliance, is more embarrassing and more painful for the woman than the man. As in single life an undesirable acquaintance is more derogatory to a woman than to a man, so in married life, the woman it is who ventures most, "for," as Jeremy Taylor writes, "she hath no sanctuary in which to retire from an evil husband; she may complain to God as do the subjects of tyrants and princes, but otherwise she hath no appeal in the causes of unkindness."

First Steps.

To a man who has become fascinated with some womanly ideal, we would say, if the acquaintanceship be very recent, and he, as yet, a stranger to her relatives, that he should first consider in detail his position and prospects in life, and judge whether or not they are such as would justify him in striving to win the lady's affections, and later on her hand in marriage. Assured upon this point, and let no young man think that a fortune is necessary for the wooing of any woman worth the winning, let him then gain the needful introductions through some mutual friend to her parents or guardians.

If, on the other hand, it is a long acquaintance that has ripened into admiration, this latter formality will be unnecessary.

As to the lady, her position is negative to a great extent. Yet it is to be presumed that her preferences, though unexpressed, are decided, and, if the attentions of a gentleman are agreeable, her manners will be apt to indicate, in some degree, the state of her mind.

Prudence, however, does, or should, warn her not to accept too marked attentions from a man of whose past life she knows nothing, and of whose present circumstances she is equally ignorant.

Character.

There is one paramount consideration too often overlooked and too late bewailed in many a ruined home, and that is the character of the man who seeks to win a woman's hand. Parents and guardians cannot be too careful in this regard, and young women themselves should, by refusing such associates, avoid all danger of contracting such ties. Wealth, nor family rank, nor genius, availeth aught if the character of the man be flawed.

Let parents teach their daughters and let girls understand for themselves that happiness, or peace, in married life is impossible where a man is, in any wise, dissipated, or liable to be overcome by any of the fashionable vices of the day. Better go down to your grave a "forlorn spinster" than marry such a man.

Disposition.