There is no reason, to my thinking, why you should not enjoy the companionship of interesting bachelors and widowers, and take the courtesies they offer, with no chaperon but your own pride, taste, and will. So long as you know, and these men know, that you are doing nothing and going nowhere you need remember with shame or regret, the next day, just so long you are on no dangerous path.
But you must draw the line at married men, happy or unhappy. Any confidential, tête-à-tête companionship of a single woman with a married man cheapens her in the eyes of all other men and women.
It is a simpler matter to drift into free and easy manners and call them "bohemian" than to cleanse your reputation of their stain, or lift your mind from the mire to which they inevitably lead.
Once a woman begins to excuse her lawless conduct on the ground of her "artistic temperament," there are no depths to which she may not sink.
Take pride in being at once independent yet discreet; artistic, yet sensible; a student of men, yet an example of high-minded womanhood; an open foe to needless conventions, yet a staunch friend of principles; daring in methods, yet irreproachable in conduct; and however adored by men, worthy of trust by all women.
Do not take the admiration of men too seriously. Waste no vitality in a rage over their weaknesses and vices. Regard them with patience and inspire them to strive for a better goal than self-indulgence.
You can safely take it for granted that many who approach you with compliments for your charms, and pleas for your favours, would make the same advances to any other attractive girl they chanced to encounter.
Too many young women mistake a habit for a grand passion. And they forget, while they are studying man, that he is studying woman, and testing her susceptibility to flattery and her readiness to believe in his simulated infatuation.
Do not fall into the error of so many young country girls in a large city, and imagine you can establish new laws, create a new order of things, and teach men new lessons.
A great city is like an ever-burning fire,—the newcomers who thrust in their fingers will be scorched and scarred, but the fire will not be changed or extinguished.