Part 4

No one would dare say how old Madame Patti is. Everyone who meets her exclaims at her marvellous youthfulness and vivacity. Patti's explanation of her bright eyes, smooth skin and happy expression is given in a few words: "I have kept my temper. No woman can remain young who often loses her temper."

As a woman grows older, she ought to become more attractive in certain ways than she could be in her youth. One of the most needful things for attaining this result is good health. Fine muscles, a healthy, glowing skin, eyes bright with energy and ambition--these make a valuable foundation for the woman who would be attractive. The woman who, at a certain age, considers herself passé, commits a great error. If she so regards herself; if she believes she has passed the time when she can be interesting, others are quite likely to find her unattractive. Surely a woman should be more interesting after she leaves the period of girlhood. She ought to be able to converse better, she should possess more wisdom, greater tact, broader knowledge of human nature; and she should have more repose, more grace of manner. Indeed, she should have all her accomplishments well in hand, and be more facile in their use for the pleasure of others; and she will be able to use them to better advantage if she has cultivated placidity of temper, human sympathy and generosity, and is not careless of her personal appearance. It frequently happens that women who have reached middle life neglect many of the aids to physical beauty which they once carefully followed. They are careless about dress, and grow to esteem it excusable to dispense with those simple and necessary accessories of the toilet which formerly helped to make them so exquisitely fresh and dainty. They grow accustomed to think that untidiness must necessarily be associated with drudgery. But in these days it is becoming more possible to carry the element of refinement and beauty with us everywhere.

Many women could seem much finer, more delicate than they appear, if they were not accustomed to think that a certain homeliness, and even negligence of attire is quite excusable, and, indeed, almost inseparable from common work-a-day life. As we grow older, it becomes more necessary that we use care in always presenting that appearance of personal neatness which never fails to be attractive to those with whom we come in contact.

One of the strongest elements a woman can possess to attract the other sex is a sympathetic interest in a man's work. This was what attracted Dr. Schliemann, the famous Greek scholar and explorer, to the young woman whom he married. She was familiar with the Iliad and the Odyssey, and was an enthusiast upon the subject of uncovering the ancient cities of Homer.

Men like to have women interested in the things in which they themselves are interested.

One who has read Richard Harding Davis' "Soldiers of Fortune" may remember that Clay grew very fond of Miss Langham. His first disappointment in her came to him when he discovered her lack of interest in his work of opening up the iron mines in South America. Miss Langham's younger sister, Hope, was, on the other hand, extremely interested in the mines, made an exhaustive study of the methods of mining, and when she, with the other members of the family, visited the scene of Clay's engineering operations, it was she who drew Clay's attention to herself by intelligent questions and suggestive remarks. He was delighted with her, admired her, fell in love with her, and then married her. That day at the mines was the beginning of the end of the old love, and the awakening of the new.

To interest men a woman should, by reading the papers, acquire, and be able to express, a reasonably clear idea of what is happening in the world. She should ascertain what is of special interest to the particular man she wishes to attract, and, whether the subject be politics, business, out-door sports, art, science, or literature, she should be able to contribute something in a conversation upon that subject more interesting than a mere yes or no.

As it is the manly man who wins and satisfies a good woman, so it is the womanly woman who pleases and retains the regard of the estimable man.

Men like the womanly woman. She need not be soft or silly, weak or nervous; she may be strong, vigorous, resolute, and brave. A man has little sympathy for the girl who imitates men either in dress, manner or conversation. If a womanly man is not pleasing to either sex, what shall we say of a manlike woman!

He thoroughly expresses the writer's view who said: "A perfect woman may be adorable; a woman who is perfect would be beyond endurance." Yet, however irreligious a man may be himself, he always dislikes irreverence in a woman. He wishes and expects his wife to be better than he is, and, generally, she is.

Men do not like the over-dressed woman--the one who goes to the extreme of a fashion and a little further. He does not care for costliness of apparel, but he is always attracted by freshness and daintiness.

A sense of humor is a valuable gift in a woman who wishes to please. Men like the girl who sees the funny side of a thing; who can make them laugh; who can be witty without being sarcastic; who can jest and not be malicious; who can relate humorous experiences without saying things calculated to make others uncomfortable.

A man likes a woman who entertains and amuses him. Young girls often express surprise that one of their number is so popular among men. They know she is not so pretty as dozens of other girls. She is not dressed so richly as they are, yet, at a party, she will have half a dozen young men about her while they are neglected and alone. She must, they conclude, have that indefinable quality of magnetism, and that is all that can be said about it, and they could not find out the secret if they tried. But probably there is no secret about it. Although she is not pretty, and does not possess a vast amount of information, she has tact, and a quick and electric vivacity of spirit which acts as a breeze on the sluggish waters, making ripples of pleasure and laughter, and so produces an exhilarating effect upon all about her.

Many young men, if diffident or awkward, feel, it may be, a little out of place. They hardly know what to do or say, but this particular girl wakes them up, and they find themselves laughing and talking with astonishing ease. She understands how to make them feel at ease, how to draw them out, and as they associate with her they become unusually elated, and it is not at all strange that in every company they look eagerly for her presence.

While, judging from the descriptions and representations which we have of her, Cleopatra was by no means beautiful, there is no mystery about her fascinating influence over men.

"She had," said a writer in The Boston Herald, "jaded Roman conquerors to deal with, men sated with every form of mere animal pleasure. There was no piquancy left in anything; all had palled and staled on their cloyed palates. But in Cleopatra was evermore something fresh, unexpected, perfectly original!

"No wonder the bystanders cried, 'Age cannot wither nor custom stale her infinite variety.' What had she to fear from the rivalship of mere youth and beauty so long as her nimble intellect was fertile, like the Nile floods, in successive harvests, in the one quality her lovers were ready to lavish kingdoms for, namely, 'infinite variety.'"

To go back to the definition of personal fascination given in the preceding chapter, we repeat that it consists "in the power to excite in another person happy feelings of a high degree of intensity, and to make that person identify such feelings with the charm and power of the cherished cause of them."

There may be such a thing as the "indefinite quality of magnetism" which draws people to the possessor whether they will or no; but there are many personalities who are charming because they have willed to be, because by painstaking perseverance they have acquired those characteristics which enable them to please and charm all with whom they come in contact.

THE ART OF CONVERSATION.

"Though conversation, in its better part, May be esteemed a gift and not an art, Yet much depends, as in the tiller's toil, On culture and the sowing of the soil." COWPER.

In all countries where intelligence is prized, a talent for conversation ranks high among accomplishments. To clothe the thoughts in clear and elegant language, and to convey them impressively to the mind of another, is no common attainment. MRS. SIGOURNEY.

The man or woman who is an intelligent, tactful conversationalist, commands one of the most essential elements of a pleasing address. While all of us may have certain defects which we cannot wholly overcome, however earnestly we may try, we can, if we will, re-form our conversation. We can so train ourselves that good nature, considerateness and benevolence will always have a place in our intercourse with others. We can, if we will, use good English, and we can avoid the temptation, so common, to talk of persons rather than of things. Theoretically, we despise gossip; practically, most of us add our mite to the common fund. We may not be ill-natured, and the sweet charity that "thinketh no evil" may have a home in our hearts; yet sometimes, if we are not watchful, it may fall asleep, and bitterness, or the spirit of spitefulness come creeping stealthily to the surface.

We can, if we will, be intellectually honest--a kind of honesty which is indeed rare. The principal reason why arguments and discussions lead to so must dissatisfaction and ill-feeling on the part of the disputants, is the lack of this quality.

Two men are engaged in conversation and a question of religious belief or of politics is brought to the front. Each takes a side in the discussion and maintains his opinions to the end. Neither is searching for the truth, but is eager to defend his side of the question against the attacks of his opponent. It does not occur to either that anything else can be the truth except the things he has been taught to believe. To both, the truth simply takes the form of their own opinions; and since they are most firmly attached to their opinions, neither ever questions his own devotion to the truth. Such persons can scarcely be said to use their minds at all, for their thinking has been done by some one else. Many a hostess is obliged tactfully to separate aggressively argumentative and disputatious guests, who have never learned that others have an equal right to their own opinions, and that not every dinner party is the proper occasion to plunge into heated argument in the hope of changing another's views.

Again, we can all avoid the habit of exaggeration--a fault which does not get itself called by the name of "falsehood," but which is in dangerously close proximity to it. A man hears something, true enough in its original shape, but he passes it on with a little addition of his own. The one to whom he tells it adds his touch of exaggeration, until, at last, the statement is so swollen and distorted as to convey anything but the real truth. It would be difficult to charge any one with deliberate prevarication. The result is a sort of accumulative lie, made by successive individual contributions of little dashes of exaggeration. Thousands who would never be guilty of inventing an entire story derogatory to the reputation of another, are constantly contributing to the formation of these accumulative falsehoods, which are quite as evil in their results as though conceived and concocted by one person.

We can put into requisition a nice sense of honor in our conversation. In a hundred different ways this most fitting attribute of the true woman and the real gentleman is often put to the test. We can remember that it is quite as easy to be ill-mannered in speech as in conduct.

There are men and women who, at a dinner, would not under any circumstances, transgress the rules of table etiquette, but who may offend quite as grossly by a thoughtless or an intemperate use of words. They may not dispense with the fork, but they wound the heart by unkind words. They may observe all the amenities from oyster-fork to finger-bowl, yet they offend some member of the company by sarcasm or personal innuendo. They may not misplace or misuse the napkin, but they may render the entire company uncomfortable by declining to yield, in argument, to the greater weight of evidence; or by overloading a story with unimportant details. They may be scrupulously neat, and of easy and graceful deportment, but may never have learned the gentle art of keeping one's temper sweet when criticised or when confronted by a contradiction.