BY A CONFIRMED BACHELOR.
Ladies have quite a different system of calculation to what men have. Look at the peculiar way in which they calculate ages. Why! they are quite an age behind the present generation—at least, the generation of men—for a man is, figuratively, said, as he grows older, to approach into his second childhood, but a woman does so literally, inasmuch as she becomes every year one year younger—a rejuvenating process, by which, if she lived long enough, she would ultimately reach the happy period when she was carried about in long clothes, and took a tenacious delight, peculiar to babies, in pulling gentlemen's whiskers. In fact, I wonder that, carrying out this retrograde movement, a married lady, as she advances in years, does not re-appear on the stage of life as the ball-room girl, and throw off the matronly title of Mrs., to put on the more flowery salutation of Miss. It would be more consistent with the representation of figures—we mean, arithmetical figures—though it might be a little at variance with the appearance of personal ones.
My belief is that the female mind has no correct sense of numbers. It belabors and rolls out figures as cooks do paste, making them as thick or as thin as it pleases to fit the object required. I have noticed a largeness or liberality of measurement in most of their calculations, which redounds greatly, in this calculating age, to the generosity of the sex. It is quite opposite to the self-measurement which they apply to themselves. Whereas the latter is distinguished by a narrowness of result which almost makes us suspect that Subtraction has been largely at work; the former is crowned with a roundness of figure which leads us strongly to accuse the sum total of having been gained by the corrupt agency of Addition. In fact my suspicions are so violent on this head, that I always adopt the following plan when I am at a loss to know:
How To Correctly Ascertain The Age Of A Lady. I first ask the Lady accused her own age. I then inquire of her "dearest friends." I next ascertain the difference between the two accounts (which frequently varies from five years to forty), and, dividing that difference by 2, I add that quotient to the lady's own representation, and the result is the lady's age, as near as a lady's age can be ascertained.
Example: Mrs. Wellington Seymour gives herself out to be 28. Her friends, Mrs. M'cabe, Mrs. Alfred Stevens, Madame Cornichon, and Miss Jerkins, indignantly declare that they will eat their respective heads off if she is a day younger than 46. Now the disputed account stands thus:
| Years | |
| Mrs. Seymour's age, as represented by her friends | 46 |
| Mrs. Seymour's age, as represented by herself | 28 |
| ——— | |
| Difference between the two Accounts | 18 |
That difference has to be divided by 2, which, I believe, will give 9. If that is added to Mrs. Seymour's own statement, the result obtained will be the answer required. Accordingly Mrs. Wellington Seymour's age is 37—a fact, which, upon consulting the family Bible, I find to be perfectly correct—and I only hope Mrs. S. will, some day, forgive me for publishing it. There are many other eccentricities in female arithmetic, such as increasing twofold the amount of a gentleman's fortune, and diminishing fiftyfold the amount of a lady's—and a general proneness, besides, to magnify figures, leading them, at times, into strange errors of exaggeration, which would debar them from following the profession of a penny-a-liner, or writing works of numerical fidelity, like "M'Culloch's Commercial Dictionary." But as I do not love the female mind particularly for its eccentricities, but rather for its beauties, I shall close the door upon this ungallant subject; for, if a woman is good and beautiful, it matters but little how old she is.
NETTING FOR LADIES.
Netting is now followed with so much ardor, as a female accomplishment, that one would think there is a great deal of net profit to be derived from it. The ladies' periodicals are full of instructions in this new popular art; and we have seen a couple of closely-printed columns devoted to directions for netting a mitten.
We had some thoughts of endeavoring to furnish the necessary instructions for netting a gentleman's nightcap, but we found that we should not have room for more than half of it, and that the tassel, at all events, would have to stand over till our next, and perhaps be continued in a still remoter Pocket-Book.