Young girls are rarely mistress of these sweet, little, but telling arts. The knowing just how comes later in life. Balzac has said that a woman of thirty is at her most fascinating and dangerous period. The women who have been the most famous for their power over hearts have all been nearer forty than twenty. This seems incredible to you yet in your teens. You now look upon twenty-five as a species of old age. At thirty, you think, as far as men are concerned, a woman is in the sere and yellow leaf; while at forty they are little less than in their dotage. Look out, that while you are counting on your youth to marry you, some of these females in the sere and yellow leaf, or even in their dotage, will carry off the prize, because she knows how and you do not. The fact is, the woman of thirty is still young now-a-days, whatever she was in our grandmothers’ time.
She can win men’s love too. She knows the world so well that she takes men as she finds them, while the girl in her teens does not. The girl aspires too often to make them fit in her narrow mould. Girls are too often narrow in their ideas. In the secret acceptance of a man’s faults, or taking him as you find him, lies a great deal the secret of power over them. You girls are too sure of yourselves, too fixed in your opinions, too certain that you are right and that others are wrong. You are too anxious to set a man right. They have a way of their own of not wanting to be set right. They never want to be corrected. If they are wrong, their ignorance is bliss to them.
Girls have little charity. They are generally hard in their judgments of everything and of everybody. They take delight in showing off what they know, and making a man feel like a fool. A man never allows the same girl to make him feel like a fool twice. Once is enough for any man. He seeks the society of another straightway. Girls are given to display a superiority, and make a man feel small. Again he walks off. A man never falls in love with a girl who makes him feel small. Now the charming girl hides her own opinions—her superiority, and brings out what is best in the man. This is what you must do every time. When you seek to win a man, make him pleased with himself. The better he is pleased with himself the better he will like you. This is not done by bold, outspoken flattery (although a man will swallow larger doses of that than you suppose), but by adroitly showing him his own best side. If you have to touch his tender places, do it with a soft hand that will soothe instead of wound.
A man likes a smart girl. Your smartness or your brilliancy must, however, be kept in the background. You must not use it to dazzle him, but to make him feel that he is brilliant. If he is witty, never try to be more so than he is. If he is highly educated and you are more so, still be willing to be instructed by him. Never aspire to teach him. A man does not want to be set right by a woman.
If he is a talker, so manage that he will do all the talking, if he wishes to, while you are the interested listener. I do not mean that you are to be mum: you are to be so interested that you cannot help sometimes breaking in. All your remarks should be to the point, and so worded that he will be led on until he is even surprised at his own powers of conversation and brilliancy. There is no surer way than this to keep him at your side. If he looks at his watch it will be to see how much longer he can remain with you, not because he wishes to hurry away. When he finally must leave you, he will have so much better an opinion of himself that he will be quite a new man. His thoughts of you will be most flattering. He will not know why. Men rarely analyze their emotions. If they did, it would be worse for us and our little arts. In a certain way they go about blindly.
A man is self-centred. He loves to talk about himself. His vanity is his weak point. If he is no talker, and all other topics fail, lead him to talk about himself. Only one man in a hundred will fail to respond to this bait. He does not know that he is engrossing the conversation in this way: he only knows that you are delightful.
The wonderful charm some girls have for men lies in the interest she shows in him, and the tact with which she makes him think well of himself.
A man will not be snubbed. In novels, especially of the Duchess kind, the abject small creature whom she calls the hero thrives upon it. His love feeds upon snubbing, and grows more intense. He falls in love at first sight, and the worse his charmer treats him the more he loves her. This is not true to life. These books are full of false ideas, and do much harm to the girl who reads them.
It seems almost coarse to advise flattery. Flattery is coarse. You can, however, discover a man’s good qualities, talents, etc., and praise them without limit. Men will swallow large doses of praise without so much as a wink. They do not even know you are praising them; they are only conscious of being pleased. You must be discreet, however, in giving your doses, and above all things avoid getting the name of being a flatterer. You can sometimes give praise with an unsparing hand, but you must be sure of the right occasion. A public man may be praised ad libitum. In fact, a man who sings, acts, speaks in public needs it.
The private man wants it too. He gets less of it from the world in general, and your good opinion, delicately expressed, will be all the more acceptable. When you have a field all to yourself, be sure and improve the occasion.