If she is a woman of sensibility, she is shocked by a hundred disagreeable habits which many men think justifiable. She is repelled by awkwardness of manner, coarse modes of speech, by carelessness of person and dress, and yet, for all that, she loves.
The lover who is most successful in retaining the affection of a sweetheart or a wife is the one who expresses over and over again the love and the tenderness he feels. Women, more than men, like to hear things talked about. They are far more wide-awake to the value of trifles, and more sensitive to changes of mood. They are given to saying in many ways, with delicate variations, what a man is satisfied to state once for all, even to state badly.
A man will believe in a woman's love and be satisfied with far fewer visible tokens of it than are necessary to confirm his tenderness and keep her convinced of it.
The truth is that a man's power of pleasing does not depend upon some occult quality of which no account can be given, but upon the degree in which he holds certain attractive qualities—innate or acquired. We have no difficulty in understanding any single one of these qualities, yet when a man possesses such a combination of them as to entitle him to the term "fascinating" we pronounce it incomprehensible, and fall back upon that vague term, "personal magnetism."
The personal elements which are most conducive to our influence over others are, in a broad way: good manners, a pleasing voice, the ability to converse well, personal neatness, taste in dress, tact, good morals, culture and refinement, physical beauty, and intellectual force. We are pleasing or offensive just in proportion to our possession of these very desirable characteristics, and, possibly, what we term "personal magnetism" is simply the result of a well-balanced development of some, or all, of these enviable characteristics.
THE WOMAN WHO CHARMS.
Look on this woman. There is not beauty, not brilliant sayings, nor distinguished power to serve you; but all see her gladly; her whole air and impression are healthful. Manners require time, as nothing is more vulgar than haste.
Emerson.