The Savannah morning news., 1903-05-10
ABOUT FLIRTS.

woman, says Dorothy Dix in the New
Orleans Picayune, is always a blunder-
ing amateur who never even learns
how to shuttle her cards, and who will
lose out with a hand full of trumps
The Northern woman generally plays
for keeps, and expects the man who
paws her attention to mean business
and pop the question. The Western
woman throws her hand on the table
and plays with her cards in sight of
her opponent, but the Southern woman
is a born gambler in hearts, who plays ,
the game for the games sake,
with an inimitable delicacy and finesse
and a lingering delight in every subtle
move. She, and she alone, of all
American women, really understands
the fine art of Irritation
This naturally renders her the more
dangerous, but. after all. imitation
fire never starts a conf1agrat ton, and
the mortality lists contain no records
of men who have died of blighted af-
lection or broken hearts, so we may
take comfort in the inevitable conclu-
sion that the flirt is part of the come
dy of life, and not its tragedy.
Still, for all that, she presents an in
teresting study, and not without profit
may we look into her ways and be
wise. The first and most noticea BILE,
because she is the most numerous, is
what may be called the universal f1irt
She is an indiscrminate angler for
men, and everything that comes to her
net is fish. She ravages the cradle and
the grave for conquests, and lavishes
her smiles upon any man who happens
to be present. She is the kind of girl
who only wakes up when a man
dawns upon the scene, and who is uni
versally hated and execrated by her
own sex. This type, however, is only
dangerous to doty old men, and very
bashful young ones who need encour-
agement, for the heart that is run on
the department store principle has at
best merely the attractions of the bar
gain counter to offer
The sentimental firt is also gener-
ally innocuous, for the reason that she
overdoes it. She is the girl who goes
about in the summer with a book of
poetry in her hand, and who in the win
ter always wants to sit out a dance
under the palms. instead of tripping
it under the bright electric lights and
who can be guaranteed to always in
troduce the topic of love in the second
round of conversation. Moonlight eff
fects are not, of course, to be ignored,
but man is a shy creature, and the
minute he feels he is being steered up
against a love scene he is apt to balk.
Besides, while men like sentiment as
a relish, few care to make a whole
meal of it, and as a general thing
little Of it goes a long way with most
of them.
The girl who flirts with everybody,
and the girl who will f1irt with any
body, are so harmless that even a col
lege boy can play with them, but quite
the reverse is the girl who apparently
firts with nobody She ought to be
required to wear a red lantern around
her neck, for she is dangerous. This is
the pious girl. About the only good
thing in the world which men are per-
fectly willing for women to monopo-
lie is religion. The pious girl knows it,
and thereby Stays her thousands. She
never talks to man about his heart.
1t is always his soul, and she assumes
soft, rapt look as she turns her per-
feet profile Qf you will notice, all pious
girls have good profiles) up to the light,
while she murmurs intense things to
him about the higher life, and says,
with little catch in her voice, that she
will-pray-for him. And ninety-nine
times out of hundred when a pretty
girl tells a man she will pray for him,
it is all up with him. It's so pure, and
angelic, and just altogether what he
expects woman to do, that he throws
up his hands and goes under, and who
so surprised, so grieved, so shocked as
she. when she finds out that a man has
really taken her altruistic interest In
his soul for personal interest in his
heart? Many daughters have done
we'll. but the pious f1irt excelleth them
all in the number and variety of the
scalps she wears at her belt.
Close akin to her is the domestic
f1rt. She is the girl who has been
wise enough to discover that she hunts
best who hunts on her own preserves,
so to speak. 1t is a signal proof of hu-
man stupidity that so few women fail
to realize the value of home as back
ground or to appreciate that when
they leave that they deliberately cast
away half of their weapons. The girl
who is merely agreeable at a party or
reception becomes enchanting when you
gaze at her through the aroma of her
own punch or the halo cast about her
from her own chatting dish. The domes-
tic f1irt knows this. She also takes to
heart the old adage about the way to
maps affections being thorugh his
stomach, and she makes her campaign
accordingly. The result is inevitable.
Before he knows it man is thinking
how agreeable it would be to see that
comedy face across his own breakfast
table, and when he learns that this
household treasure is not for him, he
experiences as bitter a pang of disap-
pointment as he is ever likely to know.
All the scathing things that have ever
been written about coquettes have
doubtless emanated from men who had
been Tilted by domestic flirts, and who
realized they had not only lost their
hearts, but a cook.
The One-man girl is also extremely
dangerous. The girl who keeps many
strings to her bow is generally
greedy little thing, with weather eye
out for theaters and candy and auto
mobile rides, but in sentiment there
is safety in numbers. No woman can
fiirt with two men at the same time
and preserve good average. 1t is only
when she can play them in relays thkt
she does any damage and when a man
finds that he has a whole evening to
himself it is time to watch out, espe-
cially if he discovers that he has been
scheduled for Sunday night. There is
something peculiarly fatal to the Sun
day night beau. You can't play cards
or catch at any other life-saving de-
vice. You can only talk. Between S