Part 3

These examples are not cited to prove that women do not care for physical beauty in men. On the contrary, that is a very strong attraction, but not the most powerful factor in holding them. Women more frequently prize men for their sterling qualities of mind than men do women. A perfection of physical beauty rarely associates itself with great mental ability in either sex, but still there have been some notable exceptions, especially among women, and every pretty woman who reads this may consider herself one of these exceptions.

As a general thing, the man who pleases is the man who understands. It does not matter much to a woman whether a man has great and brilliant thoughts of his own, if he comprehends her wishes and her feelings, as well as her thoughts. He should, if he desires to please, make a careful study of that mysterious and complex thing--a woman's nature. He must understand that it is of a finer fibre than his own; that it is sensitive and easily hurt. He should have sentiment, but not be a sentimentalist. He will be wise, indeed, if he can skilfully draw the line between the two things. "Sentiment is divine: sentimentalism absurd." He should be able to say much in little and he must not be a chatterer. A woman who talks too much becomes tiresome; a man who is an aimless talker is an intolerable bore to both sexes.

Few men understand a woman. They do not look at things from her point of view, and, therefore, do not realize to what extent civilized life has permitted her to assume that convention of manner and those civilities of speech which are in some harmless degree hypocritical. It could not be otherwise. Her ideal of a man is a very high one, but she rarely meets him, and so she accepts the one who comes nearest to her ideal and makes the most of the situation. She would that he were different, but a woman can love in spite of very many things. Usually she is obliged to if to love at all. She is much cleverer at love-making than a man. "She is an artist where he is a crude workman, and she does not go through a love scene without realizing how much better she could have done it if the title rôle had been given to her."

If she is a woman of sensibility, she is shocked by a hundred disagreeable habits which many men think justifiable. She is repelled by awkwardness of manner, coarse modes of speech, by carelessness of person and dress, and yet, for all that, she loves.

The lover who is most successful in retaining the affection of a sweetheart or a wife is the one who expresses over and over again the love and the tenderness he feels. Women, more than men, like to hear things talked about. They are far more wide-awake to the value of trifles, and more sensitive to changes of mood. They are given to saying in many ways, with delicate variations, what a man is satisfied to state once for all, even to state badly.

A man will believe in a woman's love and be satisfied with far fewer visible tokens of it than are necessary to confirm his tenderness and keep her convinced of it.

The truth is that a man's power of pleasing does not depend upon some occult quality of which no account can be given, but upon the degree in which he holds certain attractive qualities--innate or acquired. We have no difficulty in understanding any single one of these qualities, yet when a man possesses such a combination of them as to entitle him to the term "fascinating" we pronounce it incomprehensible, and fall back upon that vague term, "personal magnetism."

The personal elements which are most conducive to our influence over others are, in a broad way: good manners, a pleasing voice, the ability to converse well, personal neatness, taste in dress, tact, good morals, culture and refinement, physical beauty, and intellectual force. We are pleasing or offensive just in proportion to our possession of these very desirable characteristics, and, possibly, what we term "personal magnetism" is simply the result of a well-balanced development of some, or all, of these enviable characteristics.

THE WOMAN WHO CHARMS.

Look on this woman. There is not beauty, not brilliant sayings, nor distinguished power to serve you; but all see her gladly; her whole air and impression are healthful. Manners require time, as nothing is more vulgar than haste. EMERSON.

Possessed with such a gentle, sovereign grace, With such enchanting presence and discourse. COMEDY OF ERRORS.

She's a most exquisite lady. OTHELLO.

Is it the handsome woman? Yes, sometimes, but not always. Beauty is always attractive, but the handsome woman has the same advantage only that the handsome man possesses--she draws attention to herself at once. If she has nothing but her beauty to rely upon, she does not hold the attention.

It was Balzac who reminded us of the fact that nearly all of the most celebrated attachments in history were inspired by women in whom there were noticeable physical defects. Mme. de Pompadour, Joanna of Naples, Cleopatra, La Valliere--in fact, almost all the women whom a romantic love has invested with a halo of interest--were not without imperfections and even infirmities, while nearly all the women whose beauty is described to us as perfect, have been finally unhappy in their loves.

"Perhaps," says Balzac, "men live by sentiment more than by pleasure. Perhaps the charm, wholly physical, of a beautiful woman has its bounds, while the charm, essentially moral, of a woman of moderate beauty may be infinite."

Whether this be true or not, women surely overestimate the influence of mere physical beauty to attract and hold men. Madame de Staël, whose dominion over the hearts of all those with whom she came in contact is well known, declared that she would gladly give up all her gifts of person, and all her learning, if she could receive beauty in exchange. It was fortunate for her that her wish was not granted, for, had it been, probably she would have found her kingdom slipping away. While she did not have a beautiful face, she possessed physical characteristics and personal traits which rendered her absolutely fascinating.

To a sensible man nothing is quite so insipid as a vain, brainless, tactless beauty, whose opinions are but echoes, and who imagines that her beauty alone will hold him chained to her chariot.

Beauty holds for a time, but after a man's eyes are satisfied, he must be entertained, and the plain girl who possesses brains and tact need have no fear of her more beautiful rival. Modern research has proved that not Sappho, not Aspasia, nor even Cleopatra were women who would have attracted any special attention by reason of their physical beauty. Their highest charm was intellectual--the possession of an "immensity to give," as Plutarch expresses it, in the way of grace and accomplishment.

The idea that plain girls are allowed to run to waste as "unappropriated blessings," is not supported by evidence, for we are constantly meeting wives far plainer than the majority of the unmarried women of our acquaintance; and it frequently happens that a man who has a wife physically beautiful, becomes enamored of an exceedingly plain woman who possesses a certain quality of congeniality, some trait of adaptability which he misses in his partner.

Says a writer in Lippincott's: "It is safe to make the broad generalization that a homely girl, all other things being equal, is likely to have fewer offers than a pretty girl, but quite as likely to receive the one offer which will make her a happy wife. But all other things (save the gift of beauty) seldom are equal between the homely and the pretty girl; by the natural law of compensation, the homely girl has either some inherent or some acquired ability that is lacking in the other, which asserts its charm as acquaintance progresses. Beauty only has the start in the race."

It frequently happens that the beauty makes the mistake of expecting to be entertained by her admirers, and does not exert herself to please. The plain girl, however, is often superior in tact, for being obliged to study human nature closely in order to get the most out of companionship, she learns to depend upon this knowledge in her efforts to please. She is not dazzled by admiration, nor is she unduly confident when she obtains it that she will retain it.

Mme. Hading, who is a strikingly handsome woman, and, therefore, can discuss beauty without falling under suspicion, once said:

"A woman is very unfortunate who has nothing but beauty to insure her success. There are other things superior to beauty. Taste, good taste, brains, tact, health, those are the things a woman must have to hold people. And then there are good manners--so rare and yet so easily cultivated. To be refined, to be gentle, to be amiable, to be charitable in thought and in speech, to be intelligent, is to be charming, in spite of an unattractive body and an ugly face. To be well born is, indeed, to be blessed, but to rise above low birth is sublime. The greatest painter of the age could make only a caricature of a face for the Empress Josephine, and yet the sweetness of her smile and the charm of her pleasing and gracious ways immortalized her name. There are other ends to happiness than mere wealth; there are sweeter things in a woman's face than beauty."

Again, the woman who charms is not necessarily young. History is full of accounts of women who have been fascinating when beyond middle life. The truest and strongest love is not always inspired by the beauty of twenty. The enthusiasm over sweet sixteen is not supported by the old experience which teaches that the highest beauty is not found in immaturity. Louis XIV. wedded Mme. Maintenon when she was forty-three years old. Catherine II. of Russia was thirty-three when she seized the Empire of Russia and captivated the dashing young Gen. Orloff. Even up to the time of her death--at sixty-seven--she seemed to have retained the same bewitching power, for the lamentations were heartfelt among all those who had ever known her personally.

Cleopatra was considerably over thirty when Antony fell under her spell, which never lessened until her death, nearly ten years later.

Livia was thirty-three when she won the heart of Augustus, over whom she maintained her ascendancy until the last. Aspasia did not wed Pericles until she was thirty-seven, and for more than thirty years after that she was regarded as one of the most fascinating women of her time. Ninon de l'Enclos, the most celebrated wit of her day, was the idol of three generations of the golden youth of France, and she was seventy-two when the Abbé de Berais fell in love with her.

Helen of Troy, the celebrated Greek beauty, was over forty-five when she took part in the most famous elopement in history; and as the siege of Troy lasted ten years, she must have been at least fifty-five when the ill-fortune of Paris restored her to her husband, who is reported to have received her with unquestioned love and gratitude. Mlle. Mars, the celebrated actress, was most attractive at forty-five, and Mme. Récamier was at the zenith of her good looks and of her power to please when between thirty-five and fifty-five. Diana de Poitiers was over thirty-six when Henry II., then Duke of Orleans, and just half her age, became attached to her, and she was regarded as the first lady and the most beautiful woman at court up to the time of the monarch's death and the accession to power of Catherine de Medici.

The common idea that the mature beauty of forty is less fascinating than that of the girl of seventeen or eighteen is without foundation. By beauty is not meant merely well-formed features and a fresh complexion--these things even dolls possess. In spite of the rosy, fresh complexion bestowed upon youth by nature, a woman's best and richest age is really between thirty-five and forty-five, and sometimes considerably beyond that period.