CHAPTER IV. THE GIRL WHO FAILS.

“The young man fights shy of the girl who makes a dead set after him,” was the inelegant, but o’er-true paragraph I read in the paper not long since. The paragraphist was evidently a man and knew his sex.

The girl who runs after a man fails. She more likely disgusts him than flatters him. He does not want her or her attentions when he can have them without the seeking. It is man’s province to woo, and his whole nature seems to revolt against a turning of the tables. I call to mind a schoolmate who on this account was a complete failure. She was pretty, bright, even witty, well educated, moved in good society, and had money, but no man wanted her. Her boldness disgusted all of them. When she saw one she fancied, she paid such open court to him that he avoided her. Some time afterwards, when she saw the uselessness of pursuit there, she turned her attentions elsewhere, running after another man. Although naturally attractive, I never knew a man who wanted her.

I have known of other girls who have never married for this same reason. It seems to be a common fault. It is a serious one. If you are at all inclined to be forward with men, stop it. You will not only fail to marry, you will lose respect. You gain nothing and lose all. You cheapen yourself and your charms when you “throw yourself at a man’s head.” As it has been decreed from the beginning of the world that man is the head of the woman, so it is decreed that as he shall protect her, he is the one to woo and she the one to be won. You will meet coarse men who will respond to all your advances. They will pay you attention just for the fun of the thing. They will never marry you, and it would be a good lesson to you if you could hear them talk of you among themselves. A man never spares a girl who has no respect for herself. A man whom you run after may even say many tender things to you. He may lead you up to the point where, if you had not begun it, you would have a right to expect him to ask you to marry him. He doesn’t. He stops just there.

A girl’s great charm is a sweet, womanly modesty, which appears to hide a love she cannot help feeling.

It is a great mistake to let your male friends see you with any blemishes upon you. If you have a breaking-out on the face, a swollen cheek, a red nose, or anything which disfigures you, hide yourself till it is over. Men like to idealize a girl whom they admire, and they cannot idealize a swollen face or a red nose. I knew a girl who continually had styes on her eyes. She was not wise enough to hide herself at the time, but continued to go out where she would meet her male friends. She has never married, and I have always thought that this is the reason. Another girl had her front teeth drawn, and went about toothless for a while. Other girls do not hesitate to let men see them with their bangs in curl-papers. A man will never let you see him with his hair not combed or with his face lathered for shaving.

Be tidy always. Have your hair combed, your dress neat, even if it is old. Patches are to be respected, while holes mark the sloven. Always, even if you are scrubbing the floor, be ready to see any one who comes. The very one in whose eyes you most desire to appear well may come then. Some men have a way of dropping in at such unexpected times. Many a man has been disillusionized by a dirty dress or a frowsy head. Men like a nice appearance. They never want to marry a sloven if they know it. A bright and interesting writer has never married for this reason. Her head is never combed, and there is always a rip somewhere in her dress. Her hands are generally touched off with ink.

The independent, self-reliant girl is rarely a favorite with men. A man loves to protect. He does not like a masterful, bossy girl. He does not want to follow as if he were a spaniel. It is a poor specimen of a man who does not want to lead. Three sisters were left with a very little money at the death of their father. They were self-reliant and thorough business women. They invested their money to such good advantage in real estate that in a few years they became wealthy women. They were never married. It would have been impossible for any man with any self-respect to have loved either of them: they were so mannish, independent, and self-reliant.

Do not be of the so-called woman’s rights order. Men hate strong-minded women who are forever harping on the wrongs of women and of the rights they are going to have. That kind of girl generally does have a wrong--the wrong of being neglected by the sterner sex. A woman’s right is a husband, a home, and children. It is her right to have something to love and to make happy. When she wants to usurp a man’s place, she is going out of her sphere and makes a failure of her life. If you have a leaning towards “woman’s rights,” erect yourself and lean the other way. If you do not, you are doomed to unattractive spinsterhood, dress reform, and the lecture platform, and to feed on husks. That sweet little wife yonder, who hardly knows who is being voted for, and whose horizon is bounded by her husband, is feeding on corn. She believes that her rights are wifehood and motherhood, and she has them.

A self-assertive girl fails. A self-assertive, selfish, self-centred girl is no man’s ideal. It is unwomanish as well as unwomanly. A girl who can push ahead and take her own part is generally allowed to do so. It is a mistake to be anything that is unfeminine. Men never admire girls who have masculine characteristics. Only a fool will marry her. Do not ape men in dress or manner. Strive to be womanish and womanly at all times in every way. The attractive woman is womanly sweetness personified.

The girl who insists upon attentions gets none. The girl who looks upon her escort as her slave _pro tem._ loses him. You must never treat a man as if he were your servant. He will not stand it from you, although you may be attractive in other ways. His manhood will assert itself, and no matter how much he has loved you, that love will be killed. It is a poor outlook for married happiness. He does not care to wed where he knows he will be henpecked.

A poor girl will marry before a wealthy one will. The latter has it written upon her that it costs a mint to keep her. She may be much admired, but she is an expensive luxury. Unless a young man has exceptional means, he must give her up. You will find numbers of unmarried women in the highest society everywhere. Men are afraid to marry the daughters of millionnaires, unless a large dowry is going to be among the wedding presents. Extravagant habits, they know, have been her rule. She has never been taught to economize in anything. She must have an establishment as elegant as her father’s. She could not think of beginning as humbly as her parents likely did. So she either fails to marry at all, or marries late in life, when the death of her parents has given her an independent fortune.

A girl who shows her anxiety to marry generally fails to do so. A man feels that it is marriage and not himself that she wants. That wounds his vanity. She is never self-possessed in the society of men. She is so anxious to please that she plans beforehand what she will say. When she says it, it comes out wrong and does not fit in. She is trembling and eager even if she does not run after him. Like vaulting ambition, she o’erleaps herself. Every time you meet her, she has new and fresh hopes. She is waiting always anxiously for a proposal, and would accept any man who offered himself regardless of creed (almost color), circumstances, character, and condition.

The sharp, snubby girl never succeeds. A man will not stay where he is snubbed or where his vanity is wounded. Some girls, especially very young ones, have an idea that they are saying smart things where they are only saying sharp things. You hardly realize what a great mistake you are making when you try to be witty at a man’s expense. You only make a greater one when you are cutting in your remarks. Girls have an idea that it does a young man good to have, as they express it, “the conceit taken out of him.” I doubt if it does, and even so, you are not the one to do it. Let him have a good opinion of himself in his youth. Help him to it, rather than to try to take it away from him. The outside world will give him knocks enough as he battles his way up in it, to take any amount of conceit out of him. Maybe he comes to you sometimes just smarting from one. Let him find for his wounds a balm. Learn to soothe and sympathize instead of hurting. Your tongue is sometimes so unwittingly cruel. Your laugh is so heartless that you make a man with a rhinoceros skin shrink. It all flies back upon your own head, however. You will suffer for it afterwards. It will only drive him from you. Girls often can attract who cannot keep a beau. Notice them. See if they have not sharp tongues and do not love to take the conceit out of a man. “He has too good an opinion of himself, but I let him know what I thought of him,” I have heard girls say. One thing is certain--if you have done that, you will never hear from him that he thinks much of you.

So round off your sharp corners. Remember that the young man with a good opinion of himself is the more easy to win, because you can play upon his vanity.

Do not speak your mind plainly. Certain persons pride themselves on plain speaking, as if there were a virtue in hurting some one else’s feelings. When you hear any one say, “I always speak my mind,” you may know she says disagreeable things. She thinks when she has said that that she can go ahead, cutting right and left with her tongue. They are never people who praise. It appears that those who say “just what they think” generally think unkind things.

Avoid doing so, especially to a man. It is unkind. It makes more enemies the world over than anything else. Men will swallow praise _ad nauseum_, but they will not take censure.

The eccentric girl had better never have been born, as far as men are concerned. They will have nothing to do with her. If you are eccentric and have prided yourself upon it, the sooner you become like folks the better for you. A man will not pay attention to an oddity. An outlandish hat that causes comment will sometimes drive him away. He may not know what is the matter with it, but he knows he will not ask you out while there is any danger of your wearing it. It is a mistake to be odd in your conduct or language. Eccentricity grows upon one. If you are given to it in your youth, what will you be in your old age? A man would know that if he were rash enough to marry you, every day you would make him ashamed.

The girl who has too many gentlemen friends hardly ever marries. There is something in every man’s heart which subscribes to

“The rose that all are praising, Is not the rose for me.”

There are cases where jealousy of another’s man’s attentions will hasten a proposal. But two are in the case there, however, and both are in love. Avoid many gentlemen callers. Do not allow your house to become a meeting-place. A man will not fall in love where he sees you smile as sweetly on another man as you do upon him. He will reign alone. He never goes on shares where a heart is concerned. A man may call often, where he knows he will meet other men, but it is only as a friend. He does not fall in love with his hostess. When he marries it will likely be some little modest girl who hardly knows any man but himself.

When I was very young I remember hoping that when I grew older I would have as many gentlemen callers as a certain young lady who lived near us. Every night her parlors were thronged. It seemed to be a general meeting-place for young men. Her sister and herself lavished their smiles upon them. She never married. Her sister married a man whom she met in another place, and who hardly ever came to the house. Another girl had quite as many callers. She must have seen her danger, for she ceased to receive them. Some time later she married.

It is flattering to your vanity to have a great many gentlemen friends who call, and who take you out, but it will certainly stand in the way of marriage. It is fun, doubtless, to count up a long list of escorts, but the girl who can do so rarely counts up a long list of offers. A girl who was so retiring that she was rarely invited out by a gentleman, was loved by almost every man who got well-acquainted with her. She could have counted up a long list of offers but a short list of escorts. At a party she was a wall-flower. She had few gentlemen callers, yet it seems as though all men longed to possess her. She passed most of her evenings alone with her family, and married well. So it shows that knowing many men would rather indicate no marriage than a surety of one.

The cold girl never succeeds. A man would as soon make love to an icicle. A man prefers fire. He likes a warm, living heart. He wants to see that a girl has that heart. A pretty, stylish young girl whom I want to see settled in life is failing to do so on just that account. She in not naturally cold, but when she is at all interested in a man, she becomes almost frigid in his presence. She is too afraid of showing her interest in him to allow him to see that she responds to his. A man wants an affectionate, warm-hearted wife. So he will marry what seems to him to be an affectionate girl. There is a certain warmth of manner that will show this disposition.

A girl fails who will not let the man who is beginning to love her see that she can return love. It must be shown modestly, however. You must be sympathetic. Man has his success and his failures in life. As he comes to you, he is thinking of them more than he is of you. He wants to talk of them. If you do not show a sympathetic interest, he will go where he can get it. Draw him out on his favorite topic, no matter if it is himself. I remember once walking two squares with a gentleman who talked of nothing else but a slight injury on his hand.

An interesting, intellectual lady is going through life unmarried for no other reason, I believe, than her lack of sympathy. You are conscious of this lack whenever you converse with her. If you mention yourself, your humble aim and ambitions, a dead silence falls. You feel as if you were undone and wish you could hide your head. A woman will hasten to change the subject and to make amends. A man leaves and never returns.

A man likes to look, as it were, in a mirror. He likes to see himself reflected in the eyes that meet his. He wants to feel that the girl has so much interest in him that she is interested in every word he says about himself.

The girl who talks about herself usurps his prerogative. He does not relish that, and her society is stupid to him. _I_ is a man’s pronoun. _You_ is a woman’s. Very young girls who are filled with themselves and their own affairs are very much given to this. As they grow older, they see it does not do. Bear in mind that no matter how pretty you are or how sweet, if you will talk about yourself to a man, you become “as tedious as a twice-told tale vexing the dull ears of a drowsy man.” There is an old witticism which tells the truth in a nutshell: “What is a bore? A man who talks about himself when you want to talk about yourself.”

The high-tempered girl fails. A man bent upon matrimony avoids her if he is aware of it. If you have such an infirmity, try to get rid of it as you would a facial blemish. Try harder; for it is indeed far worse than any bodily disfigurement. Our Lord, whose strength is sufficient for you always, will help you to do so. Some girls falsely call it a high spirit. It is anything but that. It is a weak spirit. A girl who gives way to temper has no control over herself. She is weak instead of high and strong. Her doors are always open, and whoever will may come in and upset her. Instead of being proud of it, be ashamed of it. While possessing it, your life is a failure everywhere.

A sweet, interesting, lively conversationalist is one thing, and a girl with a long tongue is another. Avoid gossip and meddling.

It is a mistake to entertain a gentleman with an account of your neighbor’s failings and backslidings. His interests are broader. He rarely stoops to such little things, and they weary him. Men never care for girls who have the reputation for being gossips. Fill your mind with better things. Read and enlarge your powers of conversation.

It is a mistake to be inquisitive. While a man likes a girl to be interested in him and in his doings, he does not want to be questioned about them. A walking interrogation point is never a pleasant companion. When you draw him out it must be with tact.

A precise, prim, what we call an old maidish girl is a failure. She is born to a lonely life of spinsterhood. Unless she change she cannot escape her fate. At heart she may be all that is true and good, but no man will ever find that out. As a rule men judge of us by outward appearances. They take women more for what they seem to be than for what they are. The good qualities of the prim girl are all lost upon him.

With gentlemen a loud girl never succeeds. She can always attract the attentions of coarse men, but a well-bred man avoids her. He loves modesty. He does not want the girl whom he escorts to be conspicuous by boisterous talking and laughing. He does not want her to be hail-fellow-well-met with every man they meet. It shows she has no modesty. He cannot respect her and will not marry her. It is never nice to be “gay” or “fast.” The men whom you attract about you by it are not the men you want to marry. They are the kind who do not want to marry you or any one else.

Loud, conspicuous dressing is never an attraction. Men like stylish, well-dressed girls, but they never like anything that is flashy or that attracts attention.

The girl who imagines every man she meets is in love with her rarely is loved by one. This is a common fault with young girls. It comes either from innate silliness or from the reading of too many novels. The worst of it is, she is not even cured of her folly when the men do not propose to her, but do to some other girl. She imagines some insurmountable difficulty was in his way, and that he has only married the other girl out of pique. That is the way it was in the last novel she read. Girls, be sensible. Every man you meet will not fall in love with you. When one does, he will let you know it. Men are not given to sighing in secret over one girl, then marrying another without love. A man who loves you will be open about it. He will not avoid you. He acts on the spot: sometimes without much thought. So when a man does not pay attention to you, rest assured, unless you have offended him, that he does not want to do so. He is not in love with you. He is more likely to pay attention without loving, than to love without paying attentions.

A vain girl fails. The pretty girl who depends altogether upon her looks and is proud of her beauty, rarely marries. I have spoken of this before. It has been thought that in matrimony, as in other fields, the plain-featured girl has the greatest success. A pretty girl starts out with false notions of her charms. She thinks that she has only to be seen to be loved. She overestimates her one gift, and does not try to cultivate others. Youths who easily fall in love and as easily out again are caught by a merely pretty face. Men want something more.

Let me quote from an article on this subject which I read the other day: “Look about you and count the number of faded, thwarted beauties you know, who are embittered dependents, or else late in life have picked up a broken stick in the shape of a partner to help disguise their crippled vanity. In fact, so frequently is this the case that between the ages of sixteen and twenty-six only extraordinary virtue and talent ever saves a belle from grievous folly in her aspirations.” So if you are a beauty and wish to marry, I advise you strongly to put aside all vanity, and to cultivate the superior charms of your plainer sisters.

Never allow your mother to do the courting. There are times when a girl can win a man against his will, and he will never know that it was she who did it. A mother never can do this. A man knows it every time. When he sees her efforts, he is forewarned and on his guard. It is all done in cold blood and deliberately by the mother. The daughter has less deliberation and a great deal of warm blood when she attempts it. He is likely to think: “What an interesting girl! I believe I could get her if I tried,” and may try. Of the mother’s efforts, he thinks: “That old woman wants me to marry her daughter. I can see through her. I won’t do it.”

A mother may make herself so attractive that, if she were a girl, she would win him. Notwithstanding that, he hardens his heart against the daughter. A lady who, even as a grandmother, is attractive to men, tried in her early married days to win a young man for her sister. He responded quickly to her overtures, and seemed glad to come to the house. She thought she was succeeding, when one day he said to her: “I know what you are about. You might as well give it up, you won’t accomplish it. If you were not married, however, I would propose to you to-day.”

She did give it up.

A girl makes a mistake who brags of her conquests. She should never speak of them to any one. If a man whom you cannot accept offers you his hand, forget that he did so. By your manner to him when you meet afterwards, endeavor to make him forget it. The girl who tells about the hearts she has won, wins no more. Men grow afraid of her. She is not to be trusted, they think. If she will lead other men on to propose only to reject them, then tell of it, she will do the same to them.

A girl who fears that the man to whom she only is pleasant will think she is in love with him, is not likely to accomplish much matrimonially. She grows too self-conscious and stiff in her manner. You must forget yourself, or remember only that a man is won by a pleasant manner. If he did think you were a bit interested in him, he would be flattered by it, and might return it shortly.

By a pleasant manner I do not mean a continual giggling. While you must be animated and lively, you cannot laugh continually. A sensible girl can be grave as well as gay. There are times, and plenty of them, when laughter jars. There is certainly a time to laugh and a time to cry; but there is never a time to giggle. Solomon gives a list of almost everything for which we have time, but he never says a word about giggling. A bright, animated manner and continual giggling are two different things. A bright girl is everywhere a success. A giggler is generally considered half-witted. A giggler has no depth of feeling. A bright, lively girl generally has a great deal of feeling; she is not slow to show it, either.

Do not laugh when you talk. Do not laugh the moment a man speaks to you, keeping it up all the time he is with you. It looks as if you were delighted out of your senses. Do not laugh every time he looks at you till he begins to wonder if there is a black spot on his nose. Some men may prefer a grave girl any way. You might study the man and the place before you are too lively.

It may be that some of you who read these chapters have failed so far to win any man’s love. Examine yourself and your peculiarities to see wherein the trouble lies. When you have found it, strive to overcome the difficulty. You cannot do it in your own strength. The Lord will help you. He will give you grace to overcome every evil temper, every disagreeable habit, every unlovely manner. If you ask Him, He will make you sweet and lovely. Rest assured that He is interested in your success; for He did not intend woman to live alone.