The Jersey City news. (Jersey City [N.J.]) 1889-1906, 1890-02-03
F%ASCINATION'S FREAKS.
Every Man Has an Ideal and Tastes
Differ Materially.

DAANL sIh0uNA AAAhJ s. NtHM "H
Dame Nature plays strange freaks
with mems minds. II one OF the
many enterprising newspapers of the
day was to inaugurate a compe-
tition in which every man had to give
an accurate description OF the kind OF
woman most prone TO fascinate him,
many readers would, ] think, be
astonished.
Noah Webster's definition of the
word fascination ia, THE exercise OF
o powerful or irresistible influence on
the affections and passions" and he
gives as secondary explanation, "un-
seen, inexplicable Influence, witch
craft. enchantmept.H In the words
"inexplicable influence" the learned
doctor seems TO have summed up
neatly the whole question, Who can
explain what Is frequently the case,
that of two men OF as nearly as pos
sible the same cast of mind, the one
will find a woman irresistibly fascinat-
ing, while on The other she might not
exert the slightest attractive influence?
| Such a problem is as hard to solve as
why the guileiess rabbit, instead of
putting his best leg forward and MAX
ing u bolt, circles round the snake,
which he knows only too we'll intends
to make a meal of him.
The wise heather Aristotle said
mo man loves but that he is first de-
lighted with comeliness and beauty,
and beauty Is for the most part the
bait which lures a victim into the
meshes of the snare, but not always
DIR. Webster, too, seems to imply by
his definition that in the power of
fascination, whether exercised by man
Oh woman, there Turks certain sexual
affinity. Yet one of the most fascin-
ating women of history was Germaine
Necker, afteward Nine. de Stael,
though contemporaneous record tells
us that she was anything but a
beauty, and that her dress was not
only hideous, but sinned against
every principle of good taste.
Women, however, whose name will
be handed down to posterity as hav-
ing founded noted salons, or having
provided the magnetic influence to
gather a brilliant coterie of wit and
talent, have, for the most part, been
beautiful. Beauty is the common
object of all love; as jets draw a straw.
50 QCOI O6dubJ tOfC. 1Sfs0VH WILL
always attract, at any rate moment
arily; but most men, if they find that
a lovely face is but a mask covering a
void Uranium, will cease to futter
around the flame. There are, how
ever, striking exceptions to this rule
on record.
Perhaps the best instance is that of
the infatuation OF Prince Maurice de
TaIleyrand, once Able de Berigord
and Bishop Of Autun, for that lovely
blonde, Madame Grant, afterward
T~alleyrand. Her gross stupidity was
proverbial, and furnished amusement
for the salons of Madame de Stael
and others, which her husband fire.
quented.
But in the majority Of cases some
thing more is necessary than comeli-4
ness of face to really fascinate men,
especially such men as the Prince OF
Diplomats and this something is the
instructive faculty which enables a
woman to adapt her mind to and enter
into the spirit of her companion for
the time being.
Thus, in my own experience, / have
seen a learned professor discourse
ing eloquently on the sculpture
of ancient Greece to a young
lady whose tastes were in reality
centred in dogs and horses. Had
he known her true proclivities, he
would have stood aghast at such utter
barbarisin; yet such vas her genial,
sympathetic influence on his mind
that he pronounced her the most
charming of her s~ex-second only, Of
course, to his stout and learned wife
Had the intercourse been indefinitely
prolonged, doubtless the potency of
the spell would have vanished; for, in
reality, there was little or nothing in
common between the two minds
Saturday Repie2o.