Very late in life does a man learn the truth (and significance) of that ancient proverb that Kissing goes by Favour. For
The masculine mind is the slave of Law and Justice:
Aphrodite never heard of Law or Justice: she was born at sea. That is to say,
Few are the men who at some time in their lives have not wondered at the vagaries of girlish complaisance: the foolish, the ne'er-do-well, the bully, the careless, the cruel,--it is to these often that a girls' caress is given. And,
Curiously enough, that is, curiously enough as it seems to purblind law-loving man,--should the favored one be openly convicted, that alters not one whit his statue with the girl; for,
A girl, having given her heart, never recalls it not wholly: she may regret; she never recoils. In other words,
To the man of her own free lawless choice a girl is always loyal; to subsequent and subordinate attachments she is dutiful. So,
Even the renegade, if loved by a girl, will be upheld by that girl through thick and thin--secretly, it may be, for often the girl, nevertheless devotedly, and only under compulsion will he listen to the detractor: he may desert her, or, if he sticks to her, he may beat her; no matter: he holds her heart in the hollow of his hand. But, But,
Few things mystify poor law-abiding man than this, that the central, the profoundest, the most portentous puzzle of the universe--the weal of woe of two high-aspiring, much-enduring, youthful human souls, should be the sport of what seems to him the veriest and merest chance.
The unconscious search of sweet sixteen is for (in mathematical language which will not sophisticate her) the integral of love.--Yet
In the short years between sixteen and twenty a girl's love will undergo rapid and startling developments.
A girl with lots of brothers has more chances of matrimony than a girl with none: she knows more of men; especially of their weaknesses and idiosyncrasies. And
To know the weaknesses and idiosyncrasies of men is perhaps a wife's chief task; unless it be to put up with them.
Often enough the freckled and fringrant girl wins over the professional beauty.
Sometimes grown-up girls are just as shy as little ones--and for the same reasons because there is no one who knows how to play with them.