Men do not like the over-dressed woman—the one who goes to the extreme of a fashion and a little further. He does not care for costliness of apparel, but he is always attracted by freshness and daintiness.
A sense of humor is a valuable gift in a woman who wishes to please. Men like the girl who sees the funny side of a thing; who can make them laugh; who can be witty without being sarcastic; who can jest and not be malicious; who can relate humorous experiences without saying things calculated to make others uncomfortable.
A man likes a woman who entertains and amuses him. Young girls often express surprise that one of their number is so popular among men. They know she is not so pretty as dozens of other girls. She is not dressed so richly as they are, yet, at a party, she will have half a dozen young men about her while they are neglected and alone. She must, they conclude, have that indefinable quality of magnetism, and that is all that can be said about it, and they could not find out the secret if they tried. But probably there is no secret about it. Although she is not pretty, and does not possess a vast amount of information, she has tact, and a quick and electric vivacity of spirit which acts as a breeze on the sluggish waters, making ripples of pleasure and laughter, and so produces an exhilarating effect upon all about her.
Many young men, if diffident or awkward, feel, it may be, a little out of place. They hardly know what to do or say, but this particular girl wakes them up, and they find themselves laughing and talking with astonishing ease. She understands how to make them feel at ease, how to draw them out, and as they associate with her they become unusually elated, and it is not at all strange that in every company they look eagerly for her presence.
While, judging from the descriptions and representations which we have of her, Cleopatra was by no means beautiful, there is no mystery about her fascinating influence over men.
"She had," said a writer in The Boston Herald, "jaded Roman conquerors to deal with, men sated with every form of mere animal pleasure. There was no piquancy left in anything; all had palled and staled on their cloyed palates. But in Cleopatra was evermore something fresh, unexpected, perfectly original!
"No wonder the bystanders cried, 'Age cannot wither nor custom stale her infinite variety.' What had she to fear from the rivalship of mere youth and beauty so long as her nimble intellect was fertile, like the Nile floods, in successive harvests, in the one quality her lovers were ready to lavish kingdoms for, namely, 'infinite variety.'"
To go back to the definition of personal fascination given in the preceding chapter, we repeat that it consists "in the power to excite in another person happy feelings of a high degree of intensity, and to make that person identify such feelings with the charm and power of the cherished cause of them."
There may be such a thing as the "indefinite quality of magnetism" which draws people to the possessor whether they will or no; but there are many personalities who are charming because they have willed to be, because by painstaking perseverance they have acquired those characteristics which enable them to please and charm all with whom they come in contact.