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Title: Reflections of a Bachelor Girl
Author: Helen Rowland
Illustrator: Henry S. Eddy
Release date: March 19, 2010 [eBook #31700]
Language: English
Credits: Produced by Emmy and the Online Distributed Proofreading
Team at http://www.pgdp.net
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK REFLECTIONS OF A BACHELOR GIRL ***
REFLECTIONS OF A BACHELOR GIRL
THE average man
looks on matrimony
as a hitching
post where he can tie
a woman and leave
her until he comes
home nights. |
STRANGE, how
joyfully a man
will pay a lawyer five
hundred dollars for
untying the knot that
he begrudged paying
a clergyman fifty dollars
for tying. |
REFLECTIONS of A
BACHELOR GIRL
By
Helen Rowland
Decorated by
HENRY S. EDDY
"Just once more" is the Devil's best argument.
HENRY S. EDDY
"Just once more" is the Devil's best argument.
NEW YORK
DODGE PUBLISHING COMPANY
220 East 23d Street
Copyright, 1909, by
DODGE PUBLISHING COMPANY
[Reflections of a Bachelor Girl]
DODGE PUBLISHING COMPANY
[Reflections of a Bachelor Girl]
A MAN buttons a woman's dress
up the back with almost the
same grace and alacrity that a
woman displays in climbing a
barbed wire fence.
REFLECTIONS OF A
|
THE only way to be happy with a husband
is to learn to be happy without him most
of the time.
LOVE is just the shine on the jewel of
matrimony; but, after all, the shine on a
jewel is the whole thing.
A MAN firmly believes that, if he can only
keep his wife in the straight and narrow
path, he can go out and zig-zag all over the
downward one without falling from grace.
A GIRL is never so surprised when a man
proposes to her as he is.
LOVE doesn't really "make the world go
'round," it only makes us so dizzy that
everything seems to be going round.
ENNUI is "that tired feeling" that a girl
has when the right man doesn't show up
and the wrong one does. |
STRANGE, how joyfully a man will pay a
lawyer five hundred dollars for untying
the knot that he begrudged paying a clergyman
fifty dollars for tying.
WHEN a girl marries, she exchanges the
attentions of all the other men of her
acquaintance for the inattention of just
one.
IT gives a girl silver threads among the gold
to marry her ardent admirer and find out
afterward that she has tied herself to a
life-critic.
AS FAR as men are concerned, a woman's
reputation for brains is worse than no
reputation at all.
ALAS, if husbands were only like sewing
machines, and we could have them sent
up on trial! |
KISSING a girl, without first telling her
that you love her, is as small and mean as
letting a salesman take you for a free ride
in an automobile when you have no intention
of buying it.
DIVORCE is the "Great Divide," over
which many men think they will pass into
Heaven.
A MAN can never be made to understand
why a woman will pay fifty dollars for
a hat containing ten dollars worth of material
and forty dollars worth of style.
YOUTH will be youth; a young man chases
temptation, folly, and chorus girls as naturally
as a kitten chases its tail.
FLINGING yourself at a man's head is like
flinging a bone at a cat; it doesn't fascinate
him, it frightens him. |
MEN say they admire a woman with high
ideals and principles; but it's the kind
with high heels and dimples that a wife
hesitates to introduce to her husband.
MARRIAGE is the black coffee that a man
takes to settle him after the love-feast.
LOVE is the feeling that makes a man turn
on the hot water when he meant to light
the gas, go hunting for a collar when what
he wanted was a pair of socks, shave every
day, and forget whether or not he has had
any lunch.
HAPPINESS is at high-tide at the full of
the honeymoon.
SOMEHOW, a man who has been thrown
over always lands on his knees to another
girl. |
A CONFIRMED bachelor girl is one who
hasn't married—yet.
TOO many "flames" dry up the well-spring
of love.
IT IS difficult for an old horse to learn new
tricks—but an old man hasn't sense enough
not to try.
THE tenderest spot in a man's make-up is
sometimes the bald spot on top of his
head.
NEVER worry for fear you have broken a
man's heart; at the worst it is only
sprained and a week's rest will put it in
perfect working condition again.
A RICH girl need not bother to cultivate
the art of conversation in order to be fascinating.
Her money will do the talking. |
NOTHING can exceed the grace and tenderness
with which men make love—in
novels—, except the off-hand commonplaceness
with which they do it in real life.
ABOUT the only sign of personal individuality
that the average woman is allowed
to retain after she marries is her toothbrush.
THERE are just three brands of masculine
affection: platonic, which is love without
kisses; plutonic, which is kisses without
love, and kisses WITH love—which is almost
extinct.
OF course women should marry; no home
is complete without a husband any more
than it is without a cuckoo clock or a cat.
"HOME" is any four walls that enclose the
right person. |
NO MAN can understand why a woman
shouldn't prefer a good reputation to a
good time.
THE original fox was a man and the original
grapes were the girls he couldn't kiss.
A MAN'S desire for a son is usually nothing
but the wish to duplicate himself in order
that such a remarkable pattern may
not be lost to the world.
IT isn't the girls whom he has loved and lost
that a man sighs for; it's those whom he
has loved and never won.
LAZY men fancy that the wheel of life is a
roulette wheel, on which fortunes are won
only by chance.
EVERY time a woman gives a man a piece
of her mind she loses a piece of his heart. |
WHEN a man spends his time giving his
wife criticism and advice instead of
compliments, he forgets that it was not his
good judgment, but his charming manners,
that won her heart.
A MAN never marries when he ought to; he
waits until some woman comes along
and gets him so tangled up that he has to.
THE shortest way to Heaven or to Hell is
via the Love Route, Limited.
IT MAY be bad form for a man to pay his
wife compliments and call her pet-names in
the presence of other women, but it's awfully
good policy.
MANY a foolish runaway match has been
prevented by the fact that a girl didn't
have on her best silk stockings at the critical
moment. |
REMORSE is the feeling a man has when
the bottle is empty or he has tired of the
girl.
HUSBANDS are like Christmas gifts: you
can't choose them; you've just got to sit
down and wait until they arrive and then
appear perfectly delighted with what you
get.
THE beauty of variety in love or wine is
that the moment a man discovers a new
brand or a new girl, he forgets all about
the others and honestly believes that he is
tasting the real thing for the first time.
MATRIMONY should not be a prison but
a privilege, and husbands and wives
should not be jailors but jolliers.
THAT lump which a man feels in his throat
when he is about to propose is the "don't"
lump.
|
A MAN may read everything that ever was
written about women and yet not know
enough to avoid asking his wife a question
when her mouth is full of pins.
THE oftener a man falls in love, the more
easily and gracefully he does it; exercise
seems to keep the heart in good working
condition.
IT IS always a surprise to a woman when her
husband sues for $200,000 for the alienation
of her affections, which he never seemed
to consider worth two cents.
MATRIMONY is a revolving door, round
which husband and wife follow one another
without ever meeting on the same
side of any question.
MARRYING an old bachelor is like buying
second-hand furniture.
|
LOVE always must end sooner or later—usually
sooner than the girl expected and
later than the man intended.
THE woman who insists on playing Solitaire
in conversation is likely to end by
playing Old Maid.
FROM the number of virtues and accomplishments
that a man expects to find in
one wife, you'd fancy he was marrying a
harem.
DON'T worry for fear you may freeze a
man's love out; the colder the wind you
blow upon it, the higher you fan the
flames.
THE saddest thing about married life is the
opportunity it gives two otherwise agreeable
people for telling one another the disagreeable
truth.
|
THERE never was a man big and strong
enough to get out his clean shirt and collar
and fix the water for his bath.
IT'S when the game becomes a trifle stale
that a man begins to feel conscientious
qualms about flirting with a woman.
THE woman who pins her faith to a man
won't find a safety-pin strong enough to
stand the strain.
IN love, the best way to erase one face from
the tablet of memory is to draw another
across it.
A MAN'S ideal woman is the one he
couldn't get.
A MAN may feel like a brute at taking a
kiss from a nice girl—but it isn't until
after he's gotten the kiss.
|
WHY should matrimony interfere with
pleasure in this day of self-rocking
cradles, self-cooking ranges—and self-supporting
wives?
MOST men write a love-letter as cautiously
as though they were writing for publication,
or fame, or posterity.
THE man who breaks his social engagements
with you before marriage, will break
everything from his word to your heart,
afterward.
PLATONIC friendship is a ship that starts
for Nowhere and nearly always ends by
being wrecked in the port of Love.
TO a man, marriage means giving up four
out of five of the chiffonier drawers; to a
woman, giving up four out of five of her
opinions.
|
A MAN'S conscience is like his head; it
never bothers him until "the morning
after."
A MAN'S shoulders are not always as broad
as they're padded.
MEN say they hate anything loud about a
woman; it must be disgust that makes
them always turn around to stare after a
peroxide blonde.
THE saddest sight on earth is an old bachelor
trying to sew on a button with a blunt
needle and a piece of string.
THERE are some men who, before marriage,
will risk their lives to pick up your
parasol from in front of a whizzing automobile
who wouldn't get off the sofa after
marriage to pick up anything you might
drop, from a hint, to a baby.
|
A HUSBAND gets so used to his wife's
conversation that after a while it doesn't
interrupt his reading of the newspaper any
more than the plunking in the steam pipes.
OF course men admire a circumspect
woman above all things, but they seldom
invite her out to supper.
NOTHING bores a man worse than the devotion
of the girl before the last.
IT'S rather sad to see how easily a man gets
"that tired feeling" after a love affair has
become a bit stale.
A MAN may send you a gold-handled umbrella
with your monogram on it in diamonds
and mean nothing but good-fellowship,
but if he offers to put it up and carry
it over you for fear the mist will spoil your
feathers you may be sure he's in love.
|
LOVE letters lead to all sorts of complications,
but post cards tell no tales.
ASKING a girl if you may kiss her before
doing it is an insulting way of laying all
the responsibility on her.
A MARRIED man thinks that if he concedes
to smooth his top hair and carry a
cane he is sufficiently dressy to go out anywhere
with his wife.
BRIDEGROOMS have that sheepish look
because every one of them is morally certain
that he is a lamb being led to the
slaughter.
A WIFE sort of loses her awe and admiration
for men after she has seen her husband
without a collar and with his face
covered with shaving lather and his top
hair sticking up in tufts.
|
A MAN seldom discovers that he hasn't
married his affinity until his wife begins
to get crow's-feet around the eyes.
IF YOU want to be really popular pat a bald
man on the head; call an old man "naughty
boy"; treat a young man with timid respect;
cling to a little man like the vine to
the mighty oak, and tell a fat man how
you love to dance with him.
THE man who declares a friend innocent
even when he knows he is guilty, and defends
a woman's reputation even when it
is scarcely worth defending, is not written
down a liar by the recording angel.
ODD how a man always gets remorse confused
with reform; a cold bath, a dose of
bromo-selzer, and his wife's forgiveness
will make him feel so moral that he will
begin to patronize you.
|
IT'S as hard to get a man to stay home after
you've married him as it was to get him to
go home before you married him.
A MAN hates emotions; when a girl pours
her heart out to him he feels as if she
has emptied the warm water jug or the
molasses cruet over him.
A WOMAN will lie to anybody else on
earth sooner than to the man she loves;
but a man will lie to the woman he loves
sooner than to anybody else on earth.
MATRIMONY is a bargain—and somebody
has got to get the worst of the bargain.
THE most uncomfortable thing about being
married is that you can never tell whether
your friends are envying you or pitying
you.
|
ALL a man asks for in the love-game is beginner's
luck.
POKER and love are both games of bluff.
A MAN has so many more temptations than
a woman—because he knows where to
go and find them.
A MAN will sit on the edge of the bed, holding
one shoe in his hand and gazing into
space for half an hour, and then send the
cook into hysterics and the waitress into
nervous prostration because he has only
ten minutes left in which to eat his breakfast.
MOST bridal couples pile enough honey into
the first month of matrimony to last a
whole lifetime if thinned out and spread on
economically.
|
WONDER if Adam ever scolded Eve for
her extravagance in fig leaves.
A BABY'S kisses taste of stale milk, a boy's
of jam, a young man's of cigarettes and
a husband's of cocktails.
OF course people can't carry their party
manners into marriage; but if they could,
marriage would be more like a party and
less like a prize fight.
SOME marriages of convenience turn out to
be about the most inconvenient things that
could possibly have happened.
WHEN perfect frankness comes in at the
door love flies out of the window.
MIGHT as well hail a Broadway car on the
wrong side of the street as to
hail a man on the wrong side of his vanity. |
DIVORCE is getting to be as painless as
dentistry. Two people pack each other's
trunks, genially shake hands farewell, wish
each other luck, and then go off to Europe
while the lawyers fight it out.
A MAN forgets all about how to make love
after ten years of matrimony; but it's
wonderful how quickly he can get into
practice again after his wife dies.
DON'T flatter yourself because he calls
every Sunday evening that it is a sign
that he's getting serious. It may only be a
sign that everything else is closed.
NO doubt when a man puts his cheek
against a girl's he always imagines that it
feels as smooth as hers does.
GETTING married is so easy that most
men are suspicious of it.
|
A MOTHER-IN-LAW may be the serpent
in the Garden of Eden; but if it hadn't
been for the serpent whom would Adam
have had to blame for all his troubles?
WHEN two people marry they "lock their
hearts together and throw away the
key;" then they begin looking around for
some old legal nail to pick the lock with.
LUCK in love consists in getting not the
person you want, but the person who
wants you. If you don't believe it try being
married to somebody who is not in
love with you.
A MAN'S idea of an engagement is a
chance to find out whether or not he
really enjoys kissing that particular girl.
IT'S not his understanding of the plot of the
opera that makes a man appreciate it, but
the "understanding" of the chorus ladies.
|
A MAN thinks that by marrying a woman
he proves he loves her, and that therefore
nothing more need ever be said about
it.
THE average man looks on matrimony as a
hitching post where he can tie a woman
and leave her until he comes home nights.
THERE is nothing so uninteresting to a
a man as a contentedly married woman.
A MAN'S sweethearts are like his cigars;
he has many of each of them, loves each
one as tenderly as the preceding, and appreciates
each according to its expensiveness.
A HUSBAND can always find fault with
his wife, but, then, even archangels could
pick flaws in one another if they had to
drink coffee at the same table every morning.
|
MATRIMONY is, like the weather, mighty
uncertain, and the happiest people are
those who are neither looking for storms
nor banking on sunshine, but are just willing
to go along sensibly and take what
comes.
IT MAY mean nothing, but it's very mortifying
to a woman when she takes her husband's
dog for a walk and he tries to go
into every corner saloon.
IT'S easier to hide your light under a bushel
than to keep your shady side dark.
FUNNY how a married man who is trying
to flirt with you always begins by telling
you what a trying disposition his wife has.
IT'S harder to get around a husband without
flattery than to get around Cape Horn without
a compass.
|
A MAN marries a girl for what she is, and
then invariably tries to make her over
into something else which he thinks she
ought to be.
WHEN an ordinary man does not smoke,
drink, nor swear, be careful to find out
what worse folly it is that he is addicted
to.
A MAN gets his sentiment for a woman so
mixed up with the brand of perfume she
uses that half the time he doesn't know
which is which.
HUSBANDS are like the pictures in the
anti-fat advertisements—so different before
and after taking.
THERE are moments when the meanest of
women may feel a sisterly sympathy for
her husband's first wife.
|
A WOMAN may have a great deal of difficulty
getting married the first time, but
after that it's easy, because where one man
leads the others will follow like a flock of
sheep.
THERE are so many ways of punishing a
refractory wife that the husband who cannot
find one is either a timid, mawkish
creature or—a gentleman.
WHEN a lawyer is slow about getting a
pretty woman her divorce it is because
he wants a chance to make love to her before
she is in a position to start a breach
of promise suit.
SOME men feel that the only thing they owe
the woman who marries them is a grudge.
BLUE BEARD isn't the only bridegroom
who ever went to the altar with a closet
full of dead loves on his conscience.
|
IT isn't what a man can see through the holes
in a peek-a-boo waist that makes the garment
attractive, but what he tries to see
and can't.
A MAN who would turn up his nose at an
overdone chop or an overdone biscuit
will swallow an overdone compliment with
the keenest relish.
TOBACCO and love and olives are all acquired
tastes; your first smoke makes you
sick, your first olive tastes bitter, and your
first love affair makes you unhappy.
MOST men fancy that being married to a
woman means merely seeing her in the
mornings instead of in the evenings.
A REFORMED rake is like a made-over
hat or made-over tea—he has lost his
style and his flavor.
|
A MAN is always advising his wife to wear
common-sense shoes, but that isn't the
kind he turns around in the street to stare
after.
IT isn't the man who is willing to stay up late
to talk to you, but the one who is willing to
get up early to work for you, that you
ought to waste your powder on.
WHEN a woman is pretty and married an
optimistic man can always console himself
with the thought that perhaps she is
unhappy because her husband doesn't appreciate
her.
MEN used to marry good cooks and flirt
with chorus girls; now they marry
chorus girls and hire good cooks.
IT'S an ill wind that teaches a man the value
of hatpins.
|
IF WE could all pay the price of matrimony
in a lump sum it wouldn't be so bad; but
paying it in daily instalments is what
wearies us.
A MARRIED man soon learns enough not
to let the barber put lilac water on his
hair; it's wonderful how sharp they get
about exciting suspicion.
LOVE always comes to a man as a surprise;
he feels like a person who has been hit in
the dark, and his one thought is for a
means of escape.
IF THE average husband were half as attentive,
solicitous and devoted as his coachman,
there would be fewer scandals of the
drawing-room-stable variety.
FLIRTING is the gentle art of making a
man feel pleased with himself.
|
SOME men are such bunglers at love-making
that they cannot make a sentimental
remark without tripping over it, or take
your hand or a kiss without making you
feel as though they had taken your pocketbook.
THE average man's ideas of what a woman
ought to be are as old-fashioned and set as
two china vases on a parlor mantel.
IT takes a mighty dishonorable man not to
lie to a woman about where he saw her husband
the night before.
NEAR-LOVE-MAKING is the scientific
masculine method of saying a great deal
and promising nothing.
IT'S so hard to reform a man when he hasn't
any great fault but just a little of all of
them.
|
A MAN who devotes his youth to ambition
and cuts out love, finds out that he has
been eating the bread of life without any
jam on it.
IT'S so easy for a man to get engaged that he
is always disagreeably surprised when he
finds out how difficult it is to get disengaged.
A MAN buttons a woman's dress up the
back with almost the same grace and
alacrity that a woman displays in climbing
a barbed wire fence.
IT isn't Cupid, but cupidity, that is to blame
for those unhappy international marriages.
A MAN is absolutely certain that a woman
is perfectly proper when she refuses to
kiss him because in his simple, childlike
vanity he can't think of any other reason
why she shouldn't want to.
|
GIVE me a man with a dark brown past—one
who has tasted the spice in life's pudding,
and won't begin to long for it the
moment he has been put on the matrimonial
diet of bread and milk.
THE man who fancies himself completely
understood is as unhappy as the woman
who thinks she is misunderstood.
IF St. Peter is really an old man, no girl over
seventeen need apply for admission to
Heaven.
A KISS may be anything from an insult to
a benediction; and yet a man never can
understand why a girl is indignant sometimes
when she is kissed and isn't at
others.
EVEN a dead husband gives a widow some
advantage over an old maid.
|
THE kind of wife every man is looking for
is one who can peel potatoes with one
hand, curl her hair with the other, rock the
cradle with her foot and accompany herself
on the piano.
IT isn't conscience, but the fear of consequences
that keeps a man from trifling with
a pretty woman.
POVERTY is a love charm; you never
know how great a thing love is until you
haven't anything else in the world.
WOMEN take awful chances in matrimony—because
that's the only kind
they get nowadays.
A MAN'S past is always quite past and his
dead loves are so dead that he wouldn't
recognize them if he should meet their
corpses on the street.
|
A MAN always holds a woman at her own
valuation; if she sets a high price on herself
he is eager to pay it, but he doesn't
want anything that looks as though it
came off a bargain counter.
A MAN always considers himself mighty
clever when he can glide through the
shallows of love-making without foundering
on the rocks of matrimony.
CHOOSING a husband is like picking out
the combination on a lottery ticket; your
first guess is apt to be as good as your last.
A MAN'S idea of success is to be able to
run his business by touching the electric
button at the side of his desk.
MAN is a mysterious chemical combination;
add matrimony and you never can
tell what he will turn into.
|
THERE is nothing which falls with such a
dull sickening thud on a man's vanity as
his wife's dead silence after he has made
one of his characteristically brilliant remarks.
IT IS always a shock to a girl when her fiancé's
sister takes her into his den and she
sees her photograph standing on the mantelpiece
between an actress in green tights
and a cigarette ad.
A GIRL who has a brother has a great advantage
over one who hasn't; she gets a
working knowledge of men without having
to go through the matrimonial inquisition
in order to acquire it.
A MAN always pats himself on the back
when he has composed a letter that
breathes devotion, but would not be negotiable
in a breach of promise suit.
|
THERE is nothing so easy for a man as forgetting;
he scarcely takes time to throw a
shovelful of dirt on the grave of a dead
love before he is off pursuing a new one.
TO a man love is only a side dish; to a
woman it's the whole feast.
THERE are few men constituted strong
enough romantically to stand a daily diet
of kisses, without getting sentimental
nausea.
GENIUS, like anything else, needs distance
to lend it enchantment; and the longer
you are married to one, the more distance
you are likely to give him.
BEFORE marrying a man, ask yourself if
you could love him if he lost his front
hair, went without a collar, smoked an old
pipe, and wore a ready-made suit; all of
these things are likely to happen.
|
IT'S a funny thing about being in love, that
the minute a man begins to get serious he
begins to get foolish.
A HUSBAND always expects his wife to
look up to him, even if she has to get
down on her knees to do it.
COURTING is like cooking; you've got to
be born with the knack; brains don't take
the prizes and theory doesn't count.
THE greatest proof that marriage is not a
failure is that widows and widowers are always
anxious to try it again.
THE only way to be happy with a husband
is to believe everything he tells you—even
when you know it isn't so.
IN love, a man's interest in the game is always
deeper than his interest in the girl.
|
A MAN may like a girl ever so much until he
finds out she likes him ever so much;
then like cures like. See "Simple Homœopathy."
PROPOSING is like making welsh-rarebit;
there isn't any reliable recipe for it and
you can only tell whether or not you have
done properly by the way it turns out.
AFTER a man has seen you cry two or
three times it ceases to move him—except
to move him out of the house.
THE color of a friend's finger nails or his
socks has very much more weight with a
snob than the color of his soul or his reputation.
IF a man would stick to his wife as he sticks
to his seat in a street car, there wouldn't
be much need for an alimony bureau.
|