The Jersey City news. (Jersey City [N.J.]) 1889-1906, 1898-05-28
HOW TO HOLD A MAN.
A PERPLExED YOUNG WOMAN SEA
CURES ADVICE FROM EXPERTS.

sweetheart-Then a Widow and q Spins
sfer Come In With Some Hints That
HAY Prove Valuable.
a young girl, a middle aged wife, q
widow and a spinster fell to talking not
long ago.
"You're always railing at me for hav-
ing so many beaux and never getting q
husband, = said the girl in reply to a re-
mark. maybe it's my fault and maybe
1t isn't. / haven'tq quite settled in my own
mind whether it is or not. / have settled
one thing, though, and that is that it is
one thing to attract a man and another TO
hold him after he is attracted. When I
once set my head to draw a man to ME, I
can do it, but 1 have never yet been able
to keep one that l wanted in the least.
Whys That's what I'd like to know. Per-
haps it is because my nature is too yield
ing with those Of whom / am fond or IL
may be that / demand too much Of a man
when ! am inclined to care for him. Z
rather think, however, the trouble lies in
the fact that l permit friendship to ripen
too rapidly when ] meet a %congenial spirit.
Philosophers tell us that friendShip is the
slowest fruit in the garden of Lie, and yet
/ force it to perfection as a florist does his
lilies at Easter time. and you all know
that forced flowers and fruits decay very
soon. Friendship is the most beautiful
attribute of human nature, and nature
will not be hurried. / wish I did know
what the trouble is"
"Why, l don't think it is hard to hold q
man after you've once attracted him."
said the wife, who has the reputation Of
still being sweethearts with her husband,
though she has grown children. lyon
make a mistake in really yielding to q
man whom you've attracted. You should
smile and smile and only seem to yield.
A woman who wishes to hold a man should
never allow him to thoroughly UNDER
stand her. She should be to him a sweet
mystery. The mysterious interests us all.
That's our nature. We cling to what We
don't quite understand in the hope of solv-
ing the problem. I'm getting to be an old
woman, but / never let a day pass with
out mystifying my husband. I make an
| enigmatical remark that he has to think
about or / do or refuse to do something
that makes him open his dear, kindly eyes
and stare; but, mind you. ! I'M gracious
and loving with it all. Then I coqnette
with him. 1t is a sad day with a husband
when a wife leaves off her mask of CO.
quetry. You know flirting is one thing
and coquetry another. A refined woman
is born with a sweet spirit of coquetry,
but the AIT Of flirting Is acquired and Is
generally somewhat vulgar. You can CO.
quette and be perfectly sincere, but flirting
is merely another name for insincerity.'
"You accuse the girl here of wayering
Affection" rejoined the spinster in her
most metallic voice. "You do her wrong:
II, - 1@,4 eooJtr~ 4, -,, Tf -H~
ever finds one, she won't lave any trouble
in holding him. OF course she can attract
men by the wholesale. Any woman can,
and I don't add If she has good sense.
Brain is not a necessary commodity in at
traoting men, but fattery is. Some sour
old maid has said that there never was q
man SO homely, SO halt, SO deficient in
beauty or brain, that he could not get a
wife when he wanted to, out / think she
misstated her proposition. There never
was a woman so unattraotive bnt what, il
she set her mind to it, she could attract
some man long enough to get him where
he couldn't get away If be wanted to. It's
all well enough for young people and
married ones to have their jokes about old
maids, but I assure you most of US are self
elected. However, if a woman, after she
has attracted a man, wishes to hold him,
she must take care not to be too clever.
Men like women who are just clever
enough to grasp their eleverness and are
just dull enough to admire it immensely.
If woman wants to hold man, she must
admire him and make him feel it. She
needn't keep dingdonging into his ears
how much she admires his wit or stupid
ity, as the case may be, but she must feel
admiration and look it and seem even to
breathe 1t. And If she does that another
woman ten times prettier, cleverer and
richer, but with less subtlety, couldn't
drag him from her side"
ssThis talk Of how women can attract
and hold men strikes me as being very
strange spoke up the widow, and the old
maid smiled significantly. Mature made
women to be won and men to win. I
think it is easy enough for a single girl or
woman to both attract and hold men.
Women look at their men admirers, but
do not examine them. But a woman AK
amines her husband, and he examines her,
so frequently both are put to it to know
how to hold each other, to retain each 9TH
er as comrades, as friends, as well as in the
closer relationship. If husband and wife
were more intimate and less familiar in
their relationship to each other, each
would retain the charm for the, other that
they found so dear in the days OF Nsweet-
heartship. Married people are SO apt to
mistake familiarity for Intimacy, for close
ness. A man and his wife may be very
familiar with each other and still be as far
apart as the poles. When q woman mar
ries, she should make every effort to retain
her girlish modesty, her love Of privacy.
She should make herself as beautiful an
possible, but she shouldn't under any con-
ditions allow her husband to see how she
does 1t. A rose, as an expression Of one of
Gods most beautiful thoughts for his
children, is a lovely thing to US, but if we
knew exactly what that rose was, how it
was made, we most likely wouldn't care
half SO much for it.
"You've all given me so many pointers
on how to keep my men friends, y conolud-
ed the girl, that I'm more mixed up than
ever. If / could put Harry's soul into
Toms body and Dicks brain there, Id
be all right. Then my friends wouldn't
complain of my not being able to hold a
man after I've attracted him long enough
to make him a husband. You see, I like
one thing in one best and another thing
In another, and so / go flying around with
all for a time until-well, until they get
tired of me, and then l light~my candle
again, and another set of moths futter
into my life. Chicago Inter Ocean.