Savannah morning news. [volume] (Savannah) 1868-1887, 1883-10-08
CooUErs AND CoNoUEsTs.
The Glass of Women Who Play with
Bachelors Hearts

The mere suffering which a man under
goes at the hands OF a cOquet is not, in its
first effects, so greatly to be deprecated.
1t Is in the consequences that lies the
deepest wrong which the insincere WO-
man does TO the man who loves her. For
the distrust of her whole sex, which grows
upon him, and the conviction that neither
she nor her kind are worthy of the best
that Is in hrs nature. she is responsible.
The disdaiu which he may feel toward
her cannot greatly iniure him; but the
spirit in which he regards the tendency in
his nature, which looks 10 woman for the
truest support Of his life, and the system
atlc hardening Of those qualities in him
which reach out instinctiyely to the fem
mime side Of humanity, are soul hurts
which are not healed when the pain Of the
deceived love has passed. His judy
ment Of the whole sex cannot fail to be
biased by his experience of the woman
who has most deeply interested him.
Thus it is that the cOquet, by lowering the
whole standard OF WOmanhoOd in the eyes
Of man, Injuries her own sex as well as
the other.
The forms OF coquetry are infinitely
varied. and some of them are much more
reprehensible than others. The woman who
undertakes cOnquests simply for the glory
of displaying at the wheels Of her chariot
the captive She holds by the rosy bonds of
love is the cOmmOnest type. As her
coquetry is Of the most patent kind, its
wounds are rarely severe or lasting,
and yet there is a certain yulgarity about
this spirit of conquest which makes this
type Of women dangerous to both men
and women.
y more subtle and disastrous influence
is welded by the woman who is bent on
the scientific ANALYSIS of the various ef-
.ects produced by the tender passion on
men of different character and nature.
She has little pigeon holes marked with
different characteristic names, and into
these She classites every new specimen.
She is apt soon to discover that the pigeon
holes may be very few. ana that nearly all
the men she meets will fit exactly into
one or another of them. When she has
arrived at this conclusion she is satisfied,
two or three good specimens of every sort
having been cOOllV analysed and properly
pigeOn-holed. 1t is variety and not guam
tity she desires, and having already be-
come quite familiar with the manner in
which a certain species Of the genus
homo is affected by the greatest of pas
sions, She allows many possible victims
to pass by without an effort or desire to
add them 10 her collection: but If speci-
men not before classified crosses her path,
she is ready with her little dissecting
knife to peer into the labyrnths of new
phase Of human nature.
Another class, perhaps the most dam.
ger0us one into which we are dividing
cOquetS, include those women who fancy
themselves i'm love with each fresh lover.
These are emotional and sympathetic
women. who, being incapable Of strong
feeling themselves, are borne along by the
force Of q passion which fascnates them,
and which they would gladly reclprocate.
In their often renewed disappointment at
finding that the new lover cannot make
them forget themselves. they feel sense
of injustice to themselves, and never
dream that they are not the injured ones.