Rambles in Womanland

CHAPTER PAGE I. THOUGHTS ON LIFE IN GENERAL 1 II. OH, YOU MEN! 5 III. THE ROSE, THE LILY, AND THE VIOLET; OR, HOW DIFFERENT METHODS APPEAL TO DIFFERENT WOMEN 10 IV. WOMEN LOVE B...

I. ADVICE TO YOUNG MARRIED PEOPLE 139 II. THE MATRIMONIAL PROBLEM 142 III. WOMEN SHOULD ASSERT THEMSELVES IN MATRIMONY 146 IV. RAMBLES ABOUT MATRIMONY--I. 150 V. RAMBLES ABOUT M...

I. LITTLE MAXIMS FOR EVERYDAY USE 203 II. DO THE BEST WITH THE HAND YOU HAVE 207 III. BEWARE OF THE FINISHING TOUCH 210 IV. THE SELFISHNESS OF SORROW 214 V. THE RIGHT OF CHANGIN...

The harm that happens to others very seldom does us any good, and the good that happens to them very seldom does us any harm. People who are successful are neither envious, jeal...

The Paris _Presse_ had asked its male readers to mention which virtue they most admire in women. Here is the result, with the number of votes obtained by each virtue, and truly...

If he comes to the rose, he says to her in his sweetest voice: 'You are beautiful, and I love you tenderly, ardently. I feel I can devote my whole life to you. If you can love m...

How many people understand what love means? How many appreciate it? How many ever realize what it is? For some it is a more or less sickly sentiment, for others merely violent d...

There are nations still in existence where women are denied the possession of a soul; but these nations are not civilized. Now, Germany and England are civilized nations, yet I...

Women worship sacrifice to the extent of wishing us to believe (perhaps they believe it themselves) that, even at the altar of love, they make a sacrifice. Women in love have an...

I once heard a Frenchman say, 'My wife could do without me, but I couldn't do without her;' but, as a rule, the Frenchman who has had the good fortune of marrying an intelligent...

Speaking of his wife, a Duke says, 'The Duchess'; a man standing always on ceremony, 'Mrs. B.'; a gentleman, 'My wife'; an idiot, 'My better half'; a common man, 'The missus'; a...

I sometimes wonder how some women dare go out when it is windy. Their hats are fixed to their hair by means of long pins; their hair is fixed to their heads by means of short on...

Naturalists make little difference between women and the other females of the animal kingdom: they declare that the mission of woman is to be a mother. Napoleon I., who was a na...

Many, many years ago a great council was held to discuss the question whether women had souls. I forget the conclusion which that learned assembly arrived at; but what is certai...

I have constantly heard women complain, in Paris, in London, and in New York, that they can seldom go out in the street without being followed and annoyed by men, many of whom l...

Among the men who are the most dangerous for women must be reckoned those whose advances of love generally prove unsuccessful. Women have no idea of the harm that may be done to...

There is to be met in society a man who is particularly provoking and supremely objectionable and offensive. He is about forty, very gentlemanly, self-possessed, irreproachably...

The love of little girls for their dolls is a very serious love; it absolutely amounts to maternal tenderness. I have watched little girls nurse their dolls, and detected in the...

There are in the world men who are devotion and self-abnegation personified; there are women who are the embodiment of selfishness. From this we cannot lay down a rule any more...

Since the escapade of the Royal Princess of Saxony with the French tutor Giron, many have asked me, 'Do you approve or forgive her? Do you not think that a woman who can no long...

Every year in Paris, in springtime, we see the American women reappear with the regularity of the swallow. We expect them, we watch for their arrival, and we are delighted when...

A few weeks ago I was watching the church parade in Hyde Park, London, between the statue of Achilles and Stanhope Gate, when I met an American lady of my acquaintance. We walke...

Heller, who has collected the greatest number of instances of extreme long life, found 1,000 persons who lived from 100 to 110, 60 from 110 to 120, 30 from 120 to 130, 15 from 1...

Nothing is more difficult to define than beauty. It is not something absolute, like truth; it differs according to times, countries, races, and individual tastes. Greek beauty i...

Is it possible that these dejected, abject-looking bundles of misery only yesterday were the bright, proud, elegant, queenly fashion-plates whom I saw on Fifth Avenue? _Quantum...

The secret of a woman's beauty is not to be discovered in her dressing-room, as cynics might intimate; it is not obtained by the use of cosmetics, pomade, magic waters, and oint...

Descartes, Montesquieu, Scribe, Stahl, and many other famous writers of modern times, not to speak of philosophers of antiquity, have decried beauty, and warned mankind against...

The woman who belongs to the 'jolly good fellow' type is frank and sincere, and as steady in her friendships as the most perfect gentleman. In love, she is disappointing, if not...

Men and women who retail slander, whether it has any foundation or not, ought to be unmercifully boycotted by all decent people; and, to be just, I will say that there is as muc...

We all of us have heard of people falling madly in love at first sight, men especially. No doubt there are men who are exceedingly susceptible, passionate, artistic, and ardent...

I have just digested a most interesting book by M. Novicow, entitled 'L'Affranchisement de la Femme.' This is a very serious subject, and I feel sure that I need not apologize f...

This momentous question has been asked, and is daily answered, in a Paris paper called _La Fronde_, on the staff of which all the writers are women. This is a very delicate ques...

'You are often writing about women,' fair correspondents keep writing to me, 'sometimes praising them, often criticising them. Couldn't you now and then tell us something of wha...

'There are too many men in the world,' once exclaimed H. Taine. This was only a joke, but there is a great deal of truth in it. There are, in France especially, far too many men...

The women's-righters are so often accused, and justly, too, of trying to disturb the equilibrium of happiness in family life, that they should immediately be praised when they d...

Only a few days ago, while calling on a lady of my acquaintance, the conversation fell on a lady singer whom the public admired and applauded for many years, and whose private c...

Since the publication of 'Her Royal Highness Woman' and 'Between Ourselves,' some people, I am afraid, have somehow been under the impression that I keep open a sort of Dr. Cupi...

He feeds her well, clothes her decently, and is faithful to her. When she is ill he sends for the doctor, and does not grumble unless her convalescence should last too long. He...

The great art, the great science of happiness, in matrimony especially, is never to expect of life more than it can give. Therefore, prepare your nest in such a way that the pro...

From inquiries which I have made right and left I have arrived at this conclusion--that, out of a hundred couples who have got married, fifty would like to regain their freedom...

A cynic once said that in this world men succeed through the qualities which they do not possess. By this he meant to say that to cope with the pushing crowd, you must not be to...

I have many times been asked the question, Who are the best subjects for matrimony? I believe (kindly mark that I do not say I am sure) that the best subjects for matrimony are...

There was a time, and I can remember it myself, when men as well as women wore wedding-rings. It was, I think, a very pretty custom. The wedding-ring ought to be worn by both hu...

To marry a beautiful woman for the mere love of her beauty is to undertake to dwell in a country that has a temperature of 100 in the shade without being provided with clothes t...

In matrimony it is not 'All is well that ends well'; it is 'All is well that begins well, but not too well.' Starting from this principle, I have often advised young husbands to...

When you are dining with an intimate friend, and an _omelette au rhum_ is served, what do you do? Without any ceremony, you take a spoon, and, taking the burning liquid, you pou...

No coquetry in matrimony? Who is the Philistine who dares utter such blasphemy? Good heavens! if half the curling-pins, which are used by women at night in order to be beautiful...

According to characters and circumstances, resignation is the virtue of the weak or the virtue of the strong. A woman resigns herself to her fate in married life, sometimes beca...

There should be more joy in the heart of a woman for a man who remains in love with her than for a hundred others whose admiration she may obtain.

There are qualities which most women admire in men, and there are qualities which practically every man admires in all women; but if you were to ask of a hundred men, 'What is t...

'The ideal husband,' said to me a woman married to a French painter on the road to celebrity, 'is the one who is not a man of genius. Nothing monopolizes a man like a great tale...

Many are even said to have married impossible women, and on these women many amusing stories are related in the smoke-rooms of London clubs--stories which, I have no doubt, are...

I'll tell you what the trouble is with most women in connection with matrimony--they expect too much out of it. Not only do they expect too much, but, in their goodness, they pr...

'Are you married?' once asked an English magistrate of an actress who had been summoned for assault. She had flung a pot of cold cream in the face of her manager.

There is quite a boom in the French matrimonial market just at present, and not marriages of convenience either, but real good love matches. Young girls elope with respectable y...

Don't smile. If there is a love absolutely beautiful, almost holy, it is love with white hair. If conjugal tenderness deserves at all the name of love, it is at that time of lif...

It would do most of us a great deal of good to always keep in mind, or to be now and then reminded of it, lest we should forget it, that, when we are gone, the earth will not st...

It would be absurd to say that there is no such thing as luck. Of course, there is luck, and fortunate is the man who knows how to seize it at once by the forelock.

How many excellent pictures have been spoiled by the finishing touch! How often have I heard art critics, after examining a beautiful portrait, exclaim, 'H'm, leche!' Well, I ca...

Real sorrow is no more expressed by the correctness of a mourning attire and the despair written on a face than true religious fervour is expressed by the grimaces that are made...

It should be the prerogative of a man also. 'What is a mugwump?' once asked an American of a Democrat. 'It's a Republican who becomes a Democrat,' was the answer. 'But when a De...

Pascal once said that if Cleopatra's nose had been half an inch shorter the face of the world would have been changed. If we read history, or even only use our own recollections...

'When my next birthday comes,' once said to me Oliver Wendell Holmes, 'I shall be eighty years young.' And he looked it--young, cheerful, with a kind, merry twinkle in his eyes.

The organs of man are like the works of a clock. If they are not used, they rust; and when, after a period of rest, it is attempted to set them in motion again, the chances are...

1. When you go out with the intention of posting a letter, be sure you do not put it in your pocket, or the odds are ten to one that you will return home with it.

Steer clear once for all of useless people and parasites of all sorts--bores, who make you waste your time; indelicate people, who borrow money when they do not know whether the...

Advice is a piece of luxury thoroughly enjoyed by the one who gives it. If you want to be popular with your friends, do them all the good turns you can. Lend them your money if...

Holidays are an institution established to keep you reminded every year that one is really happy and comfortable at home only. Oh! the board and lodging, advertised comfortable...

ALABASTER--Kind of beautiful white marble, so much used in novels for ladies' necks and shoulders that very little is left for ordinary consumption. Very rare now in the trade,...

I shall never forget the dry way and pitiful manner in which Robert Louis Stevenson passed a funeral oration on Matthew Arnold. It was on a Sunday evening, in the early spring o...

I have often heard Americans say that the future may keep in store for them the paying of income-tax, and, as a warning to them, I should like to let them know how this tax is l...

To know how to entertain people is a talent; but there is one better, and which makes you still more popular with your friends and acquaintances--it is that talent which consist...

Genius is a form of madness. Early in the Christian era, St. Augustine declared that there was no genius without a touch of insanity. The human being who is born without a grain...

The Paris _Matin_ has started a new kind of dramatic criticism. The day after a play has been produced it publishes a criticism of it by the author himself, or by the manager of...

There is very little originality in this world. Even among the greatest thoughts expressed by famous philosophers, there are very few that had not been heard before in some form...

La Bruyere said: 'Women often love liberty only to abuse it.' Two hundred years later Balzac wrote: 'There are women who crave for liberty in order to make bad use of it.' The t...

The best writers of memoirs have been the French, and it is through those memoirs that we know so well and so intimately the reigns of Louis XIV., Louis XV., and Napoleon I., as...

The manly man wears his hat slightly inclined on the right, naturally, without exaggeration, and without swagger. The braggart wears his right on his ear. Jolly fellows, destitu...

The man who wears spectacles--I mean eye-glasses with branches fixed behind the ears--is a serious man, a man of science, a man of business--at all events, a man who thinks of h...

The Anglo-Saxon Puritan always carried his umbrella open. If he rolled it, you might, at a distance, take that umbrella for a stick, which, he thinks, would give him a certain f...

As I sit quietly thinking over my seventh visit to the United States, some impressions take a definite shape. I may here repeat a phrase which I used yesterday while speaking to...

An American was one day travelling with an Englishman friend of mine in the same railway compartment from Dieppe to Paris. During the conversation, the American did not care to...

For power of endurance, give me the Americans. They are angels of patience. The best illustration is what they can put up with at their Custom House when they return home. Forei...

Jonathan has such a large family of his own to think of and look after at home that he has not much time to spare for concerning himself about what is going on in other people's...

A lady, an intimate friend of the late Alphonse Karr, was one day on a visit to the famous French author, and noticing in his library the statuettes of the Venus of Milo and a f...

I confess that I am a little tired, and I will say so frankly, of continually hearing such phrases as 'What is home without a mother?' 'God bless our mother!' and so forth. I sh...