A gentleman should usually take “no” for an answer unless he be of so persevering a disposition as to be determined to take the fort by siege; or unless the “no” was so undecided in its tone as to give some hope of finding true the poet’s words:
“He gave them but one tongue to say us, ‘Nay,’
And two fond eyes to grant.”
On the gentleman’s part, a decided refusal should be received as calmly as possible, and his resolve should be in no way to annoy the cause of all his pain. If mere indifference be or seem to be the origin of the refusal, he may, after a suitable length of time, press his suit once more; but if an avowed or evident preference for another be the reason, it becomes imperative that he should at once withdraw from the field. Any reason that the lady may, in her compassion, see fit to give him as cause for her refusal, should ever remain his inviolable secret.
SOCIAL PASTIME ON RETURN VOYAGE
DECLINED WITH REGRETS.
As whatever grows has its natural period for maturing, so has love. At engagement you have merely selected, so that your familiarity should be only intellectual, not affectional. You are yet more acquaintances than companions. As sun changes from midnight darkness into noonday brilliancy, and heats, lights up, and warms gradually, and as summer “lingers in the lap of spring;” so marriage should dally in the lap of courtship. Nature’s adolescence of love should never be crowded into a premature marriage. The more personal, the more impatient it is; yet to establish its Platonic aspect takes more time than is usually given it; so that undue haste puts it upon the carnal plane, which soon cloys, then disgusts.