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.