Women of uncertain age receive unks in the form of bed-shoes, with an old-maid implication; linen collars, with stiff tabby-cat bows in front, disgustingly neat—“so nice for business!” There they are, in back of the bureau drawer, yellowing with age.
When you were married, you received thirty-four wedding unks; nine pie knives and forty-five pickle forks.
A gold pencil that won’t write is an unk; so is that padded seal volume of Tennyson on the shelf beneath the center table. (See Gorgule.)
What is an unk? That thing that lies
Upon your bureau, there!
You have outlived your first surprise;
You do not even care.
Its faint and foolish life is done,
It is a mere negation;—
An unused souvenir of one
Without imagination!
Varm, n. 1. The quintessence of sex. 2. One who is characteristically womanish or man-like.
Var´mic, a. Monosexually psychologic. 2. Provoking intersexual antipathy.
A man in love thinks himself attracted to a woman because she is feminine, and different from him; in reality, it is because he thinks she is different from other women. He does not discover her varm. Other girls are vain, tricky, deceitful and illogical—she is a creature unique.
But, when he is married, she becomes unexpectedly varmic. He watches her egoistic poses before the mirror, and the first time their “togetherness” is broken by her confidential delights with another woman, he sees her varm.
To a man, there is something he hates in woman, if not in women. It’s the subtle antipathy of sex—the things women tell each other—the things they do—it’s the varm.