A Guide to Men: Being Encore Reflections of a Bachelor Girl

WHAT EVERY WOMAN WONDERS

A man's life is like a musical comedy; there is always one woman in it who is the star—but it takes ninety-nine others to make up the "ensemble."

Nothing so annoys a man as to have a woman "cheer him up," when he is enjoying the exquisite luxury of feeling sorry for himself.

The modern girl's "perfect candor" has taken the sin out of sincerity—and most of the sweet scent out of the flower of sentiment. Without the Serpent, the Garden of Eden would seem a dull old place to most men.

Love is neither a bonfire, nor a kitchen-fire; but an altar-fire, to be kept burning forever with prayer and reverence.

In the language of love, "Forever!" means for quite a little while and "Never!" means not until next season.

"A fool there was, and he made his prayer"—to two women on the same party wire.

Love is a matter of give and take—marriage, a matter of misgive and mistake.

Even a fool knows enough to laugh at a man's joke—but only a born Siren knows enough to hang onto his coat-lapel and beg him to "Tell it again!"

Some men are born for matrimony, some achieve matrimony—but most of them are merely poor dodgers.

There are many times when a woman would gladly drop her husband, if she did not feel morally certain that some other woman would come right along and pick him up.

Alas! In choosing a husband, it seems that you've always got to decide between something tame and uninteresting, like a gold-fish, and something wild and fascinating, like a mountain goat.

Perhaps the first time a young man actually realizes that he is married is when he catches himself looking at other women with that strange, new, wistful sort of interest.

It is at once the mission and the punishment of the flirt to go through life tapping the hearts of men, that they may overflow—for other women.

The sweetest things in a woman's life are her "yesterdays"—the sweetest things in a man's life are his "tomorrows."

The man who is fondly looking for a perfect angel almost invariably ends by marrying some little devil who knows how to persuade him that her horns are merely the signs of a budding halo.

Woman is to most men what "heart-failure" is to the doctors—something that it is always convenient to blame any old thing on.

"The mind has a thousand eyes—the heart but one!"—and that usually goes fast asleep, after marriage.

Philosophy is the only kind of "sweetening" with which to make life palatable.

Estimated from a wife's experience, the average man spends fully one-quarter of his life in looking for his shoes.

An "idealist" is a man who is content to worship a woman from afar—and let some gross, unselfish materialist marry her and support her.

Changing husbands is about as satisfactory as changing a bundle from one hand to the other; it gives you only temporary relief.

France may claim the happiest marriages in the world, but the happiest divorces in the world are "made in America."

No doubt, even Solomon told each of his 700 wives that he had merely thought he loved the others, but that she was the only girl he "ever really cared for" in just that way.

Love is what makes a man appear blissfully happy, when a woman is mussing up the precious wisp of hair across his bald spot.

Love is what makes a woman laugh delightedly when a man is telling her for the second time, a story which she knew by heart before he told it to her the first time.

All this "sex-antagonism" must have started when Adam brought in the first rabbit and ordered Eve to make it into Chicken-a-la-King.

When a man takes a notion to marry, he doesn't start following it up—he merely stops running away.

A woman is young until the light dies out of her last lover's eyes.

Whenever a pretty girl runs her fingers through his hair, a cautious bachelor can't help thinking of what happened to Samson.

Success in flirtation, as in gambling, consists in "getting out of the game" at the psychological moment before your luck begins to turn.

Being a husband's "economic equal" may be awfully noble and advanced; but it usually means being all of his ribs and most of his vertebrae.

Men have been classified as "what women marry." They have two feet, two hands and sometimes two wives—but never more than one collar-button or one idea at a time.

When a man says, "Nobody understands me," don't fancy he is suffering. He is merely trying to let you know, in a modest way, that he is a profound, fascinating mystery.

A man snatches the first kiss, pleads for the second, demands the third, takes the fourth, accepts the fifth—and endures all the rest of them.

After two years, an engagement doesn't need to be broken; it just naturally sags in the middle and comes apart.

Eve had as much choice in the matter of a husband as any other woman. She merely accepted what fate sent her, and pretended to have gotten her "ideal."

It is not much comfort to be able to keep your husband's material body in the house evenings, when his astral body keeps wandering off to the club, every few minutes.

In love, sweet are the uses of diversity!

A woman's love "bursts into flower," but judging from the time it takes him to discover it, a man's love must be developed by the wearisome process of geological formation.

If a man and a diamond are big and brilliant enough, one doesn't mind a few flaws in them; but, for some reason, Heaven knows why, a woman and a pearl are expected to be absolutely perfect.

When Fate places a laurel wreath on the brow of a genius she hitches a plough to his shoulders and holds a Tantalus cup to his lips.

It isn't the man who paints his virtues in three colors and begs her to marry him, but the one who paints his sins in vermilion and begs her to "save" him who usually wins the girl.

If you want a man to propose don't try to make your family coddle him. Make them hate him, because a man never really "takes hold" until somebody begins to pull the other way.

The man who falls in love at first sight never knows what has struck him, and therefore mercifully escapes all the agonizing slow-torture of feeling himself sink, inch by inch, into the quicksands of matrimony.

Never believe that justice is all you owe your husband; what every man needs, from the woman who loves him, is faith, hope and charity—and above all, mercy.

Even a coquette can be loyal to one man—until she prefers another; but a man's heart is like a ferry-boat—always going backward and forward, and never staying "docked."

Soft, sweet things with a lot of fancy dressing—that is what a little boy loves to eat and a grown man prefers to marry.

SECOND INTERLUDE

A woman wastes more time in dreaming over a past flirtation than it would take a man to start a half dozen new ones.

Flattery affects a man like any other sort of "dope." It stimulates and exhilarates him for the moment, but usually ends by going to his head and making him act foolish.

The only way to be happy in this world is to take men and flirtations as they come—and let them go as they go.

Almost any straight path of devotion will lead to a woman's heart. It's this zigzagging from sentiment to cold fear and from adoration to self-preservation, that makes the way so long and dangerous for the average man.

Solomon may have been the most famous husband who ever lived, but as a hero he isn't in it with the man who manages to get along happily and contentedly all through life with just one wife!

Woman! The peg on which the wit hangs his jest, the preacher his text, the cynic his grouch, and the sinner his justification!

Everybody seems to be going through life at automobile speed nowadays; but alas, there are no sentimental garages by Life's wayside at which we may obtain a fresh supply of emotions, purchase a new thrill or patch up an exploded ideal.

A man's work lasts from sun to sun, but his excuses for staying late at the office are never done.

Every man wants a woman to appeal to his better side, his nobler instincts and his higher nature—and another woman to help him forget them.

Never rush into a love affair. Love is a waiting game, which requires nerve, concentration, and a poker face.

The average man marries one woman just in order to escape from a lot of others—and then flirts with a lot of others just in order to forget that he is married to one.

Once a girl's heart beat faster at the sound of her sweetheart's footstep on the garden path; but now it requires the hum of a twelve-cylinder motor-car to rouse her from her lassitude.

The one thing about love-making that the modern man simply can't understand is that, in order to make it thrilling and interesting, he must really put a little love in it.

In the war of the sexes a woman hides her scars of battle beneath a smile and a coat of rouge. A man goes about displaying his as proudly as though they were medals.

Occasionally one meets a man who plunges into a love affair as he plunges into the surf, but most of them just sit back lazily on the beach and let the waves of emotion splash harmlessly over them.

BRIDES

"NEVERS" FOR THE "RIB."

Never refuse to kiss him—but sometimes keep him waiting a little while. Love thrives so much better on the stimulant of suspense than on the anaesthetic of memory.

Never question him about his past love affairs. It is not the women he has loved, but those he has not yet loved, who will bother you.

Never fling your old flames in his face. If you do he will soon cease to be jealous of the men you "might have married" and begin to envy them.

Never accuse him of being less ardent than he was before he married you. Many a husband would never discover that he was no longer madly in love, if his wife did not keep constantly reminding him of it.

Never chide him for the same fault more than once.

A man can become so accustomed to the thought of his own faults that he will begin to cherish them as charming little "personal characteristics."

Never refer to your own defects. A man always accepts a woman at her own valuation; and he doesn't prize anything that advertises herself as a "second."

Never laugh at him. Woman is supposed to be the only human joke and man the only laughing animal—except the hyena.

Never cry before him. A woman's tears soon wash all the color out of a man's love; after the third deluge they have no power to move him—except to move him out of the house.

Never threaten him, scold him nor argue with him. Act! A woman's arguments affect a man as water does a cat. He simply waits for them to dry up—and then he goes out and does as he pleases.

Never doubt his word—even when you know he is lying. A husband is like religion: to give you any real comfort, he must be taken with blind faith.

Never put him on a leash. The dog or the husband that has to be tied is always the one that eventually has to be advertised in the "lost" columns.

Never forget that marriage should be a privilege, not a prison; home a refectory, not a reformatory; and wives jolliers, and not jailers.

SYNCOPATIONS

Hanging on a man's word may flatter him, but hanging on his neck merely frightens him.

Every gay dog has his day—after.

One may be loved forever! It is the vain desire to go on being a "heart-breaker" after one's flirting days are over that constitutes the real tragedy of age.

A man regards a woman's love first as an unattainable dream, then as a boon, then as a blessing, then as a right, then as a matter-of-course—and, last, as a punishment.

A man's idea of "preserving the unities" is to find out what side of an argument his wife is on, and then take the other side, in order to keep it from sagging.

After a bachelor's heart has been patched up, cut down and remodeled to fit the romantic ideal of one girl after another, there is seldom enough of it left to go all the way around the honeymoon.

There is no question of degree in matrimony. You can be a little bit in love or a little bit ill; but you can't be a little bit married or a little bit dead.

Telling lies is a fault in a boy, an art in a lover, an accomplishment in a bachelor, and second-nature in a married man.

If your husband is wrapped up in his work from 9 A.M. to 6 P.M. you needn't bother to investigate his morals. Satan wouldn't waste his talents trying to tempt a man with so little time and energy for the devil's business.

You can't argue, frighten or nag a man into loving you just because he "ought to"—because, dearie, love is not exactly a man's feeling for a thought-censor, a creditor or a critic-on-the-hearth.

There are more ways of killing a man's love than by strangling it to death—but that's the usual way.

In matters of the heart most men are still in a state of barbarism, slightly tempered by woman.

A man is never old until his spirit is worn out, his rosy hopes have turned gray, his illusions have faded and he has wrinkles on his heart.

An optimist is merely an ex-pessimist with his pockets full of money, his digestion in good condition and his wife in the country.

Every time a man hits a woman's vanity he makes a dent in her love.

A man's first lie wounds a woman's heart, the second breaks it, the third mends it, and all the rest simply harden it.

Dissimulation is the price of peace—but it's awfully hard for a married woman to preserve the peace by deceiving her husband into thinking that he is deceiving her, every time he tries.

Of course men are not so suspicious as women. A woman in love would be jealous of a store dummy; but how can a man possibly suspect that any girl on whom he may bestow himself could ever think of anybody else?

A good woman inspires a man, a brilliant woman interests him, a beautiful woman fascinates him—but the considerate woman gets him.

There never was a man too nearsighted to see the look of admiration in a pretty woman's eyes.

WIFE: The woman from whom a man failed to escape and to whom he complacently refers as "the little woman I married."

MARRIAGE: The intermission between the wedding and the divorce.

WEDDING: The point at which a man stops toasting a woman and begins roasting her.

Most girls, nowadays, would give a lot for a few solid vows, a few unshrinkable signs of devotion and a really convincing kiss.

It isn't a husband's disinclination to listen to his wife's conversation, but that "I-am-ready-to-bear-with-you" expression with which he does it that grates on her nerves so.

The average man has so much heart that he apparently thinks it a pity to waste it all on one woman.

Alas! Why is it that when your cup of happiness is full somebody always jogs your elbow!

Never judge a man's love by the ardor of his first kiss, nor by the tenderness of his second, but by the eagerness with which he seeks the third.

When it comes to making love, a girl can always listen so much faster than a man can talk.

If nothing but their heart-strings became entangled, people would not find the marriage tie so binding; it is a man's purse-strings and a woman's apron-strings that really form the Gordian knot.

In love, a man loses first his head, then his vanity, then his poise—and, last of all, his heart.

It is much more comfortable to be considered a "little devil" and get a credit mark every time you do anything right, than to be considered an "angel" and get a black mark every time you do anything human.

Love is a game at which a woman must play against stacked cards, and without the slightest inkling of the trump.

A woman's last resort is henna—a man's Gehenna.

To a woman marriage is the beginning of life; to a man it is the end of "liberty and the pursuit of happiness."

Perfect wife: That which a married man always fancies he might have gotten if he had kept on experimenting a little longer.

Why is it that, no matter how much a man thinks of one girl, he can't help thinking of a lot of others at the same time?

Don't waste time trying to break a man's heart; be satisfied if you can just manage to chip it in a brand new place.

DIVORCES

Most marriages, nowadays, seem built for speed rather than for endurance.

A divorcée is one who has graduated from the Correspondence School of Experience.

Marriage, according to the merry Widow-reno, is a "perfectly lovely experience to have had!"

Grass Widow: The angel whom a man loved, the human being he married, and the devil he divorced.

Most actresses are married—now and then; most literary women—off and on; most society women—from time to time.

When a woman obtains her second divorce, one hardly knows whether to class her as a good loser, a bad chooser, or just a "poor sport."

Why is it that when a man hears that a woman has had a "past," he is always so anxious to brighten up her present?

Many a woman's sole reason for getting a divorce is because she is tired of holding onto heaven with one hand and onto a man with the other.

When two people decide to get a divorce, it isn't a sign that they "don't understand" one another, but a sign that they have, at last, begun to.

That "just-after-the-divorce" feeling is not the exhilarating thing many people imagine it. It is more like the mingled sensation of pain and relief that comes the moment after you have removed a tight slipper and before the ache has subsided.

Divorce is the Great Divide, over which most men expect to pass into the Happy Hunting Grounds.

Reno! The land of the free and the grave of the home!

THIRD INTERLUDE

"Intuition" is what a man calls a girl's ability to see through him, before marriage; "suspicion" is what he calls it, after marriage.

Satan, himself, could no doubt make any woman love him, if he took the trouble to convince her that it was "her beauty that drove him to Hades."

Of course, polygamy is dreadful; but, at least, an Oriental wife can come within four or five guesses of knowing where her husband spends his evenings.

Take care of a woman's vanity—and her love will take care of itself.

Ever since Eve started it all by offering Adam the apple, woman's punishment has been to have to supply a man with food and then suffer the consequences when it disagrees with him.

The wings of love are not clipped by marriage; they merely molt for lack of exercise.

All love is 99.44 per cent pure: pure imagination, pure vanity, pure curiosity, pure folly or whatever else it happens to be.

Don't waste your tears on the girls a heart-breaker should have married and didn't; save them for the girl he will marry and shouldn't.

It requires a little moisture to make a postage stamp stick and a little cold water of indifference to make a sweetheart stick.

There are only two kinds of perfectly faultless men—the dead and the deadly.

In order to see a man in his most interesting colors a woman always has to scrape off a lot of unnecessary whitewashing.

Marriage is a discord that turns "Love's Old Sweet Song" from a eulogy into an elegy.

The height of the average girl's ambition is just about six feet.

You can always cure a man of love-sickness with "mental suggestion" merely by suggesting to him that the girl is trying to marry him.

Marriage is the operation by which a woman's vanity and a man's egotism are extracted without an anaesthetic.

Jealousy is the false alarm that wakes us up from love's young dream.

The most successful men are not those who have been inspired by a wise woman's love, but those who have perspired in order to gratify a foolish woman's whims.

It is easier to keep half a dozen lovers guessing than to keep one lover after he has stopped guessing.

A man's soul lies so close to his digestion that when he looks blue and downhearted, a woman never knows whether to offer him a kiss, a meal, a dose of philosophy or a dyspepsia tablet.

A woman is so complex that she can prove to a man by every possible convincing argument that she feels nothing but platonic friendship for him, at the same time that she is thinking how she would like to run her fingers through his hair.

One reason why a man's life is so much fuller than a woman's is because he spends nearly three-quarters of it in hunting up things for a woman to do.

Oh yes, a woman always looks up to a brave, strong man whom she can respect—and then nine times out of ten, goes and marries some pallid weakling whom she can "mother."

A man spends his boyhood struggling against an education, his youth struggling against matrimony and his middle-age struggling against embonpoint; but sooner or later he succumbs to all of them.

No man wants an "equal" but an angel. If Satan himself should decide to marry he wouldn't go around looking for a congenial little Satanette, but for a paragon who had a pull with St. Peter.

WIDOWS

Second mourning is that interesting period, at which a widow continues to weep with one eye while she begins to flirt with the other.

When a widow comes in at the door, a debutante's chances fly out of the window.

No matter how many wrinkles a widow may have in her face, she always has enough at her fingertips to offset them.

Even a dead husband gives a widow some advantage over a spinster; the very debts her husband left afford her something to boast about to the unmarried woman who has only her own board bills to pay.

A girl takes a man for better or for worse—but a widow merely takes him for granted.

Girls are the milk and honey which sweeten a man's life; widows, the caviare and wine which relieve its flatness and give it spice and piquancy.

A girl knows exactly what kind of man she wants to marry; but a widow knows all the kinds she doesn't want to marry, and usually makes a safe selection by the wise process of elimination.

A widow's chief consolation in remarrying is probably that she finds it less exhausting to sit up and wait for one man to come home evenings, than to sit up and wait for a lot of them to go home.

Widows have all the honor and glory without any of the trials of matrimony; a live husband may be a necessity, but a dead one is a luxury.

Matrimony is the price of love—widowhood, the rebate.

IMPROVISATIONS

A man may honestly admire a superior woman; but when it comes to marrying, he usually looks about for something far enough beneath him to enjoy being ordered about and patted on the head.

A girl's heart is like her dressing-table—crowded with tenderly cherished little souvenirs of love; a man's, like his pipe, is carefully cleaned and emptied after each flame has gone out.

A man doesn't ask a girl to "name the day" any more; he merely pleads guilty to loving her and then closes his eyes while she passes sentence on him and decide when he shall begin "serving time."

When a woman reforms she bleaches her conscience down to the roots as she does her hair; a man simply gives his a coat of whitewashing so that he will have a nice, clean space in which to begin all over again.

When a bachelor sniffs through his letters before opening them in the morning, it is not a sign that he is looking for dynamite, but that he is looking for a note bearing a brand of sachet which he has mistaken for some girl's "sweet personality."

At the awakening from love's young dream the woman's first thought is, "How can I break his heart?" The man's, "How can I break away?"

A man falls in love through his eyes, a woman through her imagination, and then they both speak of it as an affair of "the heart."

No, Clarice, a man's idea of being loved isn't exactly being followed around with a hot water bottle, a box of pills and the eternal question: "Do you love me as much as ever?"

One grass widow doesn't make a summer resort—but she can always make it interesting.

When a man has baggy trousers nowadays it is from falling on his knees to an automobile—not to a girl.

A black lie always shows up against the dazzling background of truth; it's all the little white ones a man keeps telling you that can't be spotted or distinguished from the rest of his conversation.

The only time when a sense of humor profits a woman anything is when she can laugh at herself for having tried to charm a man by dazzling him with it.

Most men fall in love with a sudden jolt, and wake up to find that they are married to an "impulse."

It's a lame love that has to be carried through the honeymoon in a three-thousand-dollar touring car.

In the mathematics of a bachelor one kiss makes a flirtation, two kisses make one conquest, three kisses make a love-affair and four kisses make one tired.

There are "chain-smokers" who light one cigarette from the dying end of another—and there are also "chain lovers" who light one flame from the dying embers of another.

Eve had one advantage over all the rest of her sex. In his wildest moments of rage Adam never could accuse her of being "just like her mother!"

Every woman has a different notion of an ideal husband; but every woman's ideal lover is the same impossible combination of saint and devil, brute and baby, hero and mollycoddle, that never is seen anywhere off the stage or outside the pages of a "best thriller."

Love is a voyage of discovery, marriage the goal—and divorce the relief expedition.

A man never can comprehend why a woman can't understand how he can be dead in love with one girl and acutely alive to the charms of a lot of others at the same time.

Jealousy is the tie that binds—and binds—and binds.

It is not the fear of being shipwrecked that keeps a bachelor from embarking on the sea of matrimony; it is the awful horror of being becalmed.

Nowadays most women grow old gracefully; most men, disgracefully.

A man can forgive a woman for having made a fool of herself over any man on earth—except himself.

Eternity: The interval between the time when a woman discovers that a man is in love with her and the time when he finds it out himself and tells her about it.

The follies which a man regrets the most, in his life, are those which he didn't commit when he had the opportunity.

In the average man's opinion the command, "Thou shalt not steal," does not apply to a kiss, a heart, an umbrella, an hotel or an after-dinner story.

To a woman the first kiss is just the end of the beginning; to a man, it is the beginning of the end.

The qualities a man seeks in a bride no more resemble those he will want in a wife than a cabaret rag-ditty resembles a lullaby, but two years ahead is farther than any man can see when he is looking into a pretty girl's eyes.

WIDOWERS

Of course it is easier to marry a widower than a bachelor. A man who has been through the Armageddon of one marriage has no spirit of battle left in him.

When a widow begins curling her hair, again, or a widower begins worrying about his thinness on top, Cupid chuckles and gets out his arrows and Satan smiles behind his hand.

In the matrimonial market a seasoned bachelor is just a shop-worn remnant; a divorcé is a cast-off, second-hand article; but a widower is a treasured heirloom inherited only through death.

After his wedding day, a man usually tucks all the flattering adjectives and tender nothings in his vocabulary away in a pigeon-hole and marks them "Not to be opened until widowerhood."

Perhaps there may not be so much excitement in marrying a widower; but there is a lot more comfort in getting something that another woman has broken to double harness than in lashing yourself to a bucking bronco fresh from the wild.

No matter how unhappy a man may have been with his first wife nothing on earth will make him flatter her successor by acknowledging that she was not a combination of Circe, St. Cecilia and the Venus di Milo.

The girl who marries a widower may be a sort of "second edition," but the girl who marries a seasoned bachelor is apt to be a forty-second edition.

When a widower vows he will "never marry again," listen for the wedding bells! The "Never-agains" are the easiest fruit in the Garden of Love. It's the "Never-at-alls!" who are harder than a newsboy's conscience, colder than yesterday's kiss, and less impressionable than a boarding-house steak.

If a woman could foresee how irresistible her husband would look with a bereaved expression on his face and a black band on his coat sleeve, it would give her the strength to live forever.

Some widowers are bereaved—others, relieved.

A man may forget all about how to make love during ten years of matrimony, but it's wonderful how quickly he can brush up on the fine points again after he becomes a widower.