“SOFT SOAP:”

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1687, 29 June 1904, Page 71 (Supplement)

“SOFT SOAP:”

' ; ?v' r Ai man,, if - ever, he, soft-soaps' another man ip,' f<Black'iflefiidte object, hardly Ms . . own'.insincerity, but a^woman- —well.: it Vis avwoman ? s religion .Jfo make artman 'Vvtihink her charming, and I am. afraid;— desperately afraid—that she does this '•.most successfully when she makes him talk about himself.

How. often does a man turn over in his mind .what subject of conversation .the woman will talk, best with whom'accident has. thrown him. together, especially if she be plain.and shy ?. Now; a man must be a great idiot indeed .if he does not find some woman to coo little nothings at. him; to lead him tenderly outvOf .-narrow, monosyllabic paths into the glowing buttercup and dandelion fields of conversation .where he can gambol joyfully. ?‘I came out strong, by Jove!” he congratulates himself proudly as they separate,' and the goose never realises, , as he supports himself against his usual wail and stares vacantly at the crowd, that the .beguiling young thing, who siriiled up at Mm like a rising son, labopfbd with him eriergy which would have appalled a coal-heaver. Now, would a man fatigue himself as much to: chatter with an 'empty-headed v unattractive girl ? ' Hand on heart, gentlemen; confess! • " .

•' - J think it was Thackeray who said, that any woman not disfigured with a. hump might .marry any man. It is presumption to •’contradict the immortal master, „but I don't believe it. Rather do I "believe the words of wisdom of our old family cook. She finished a dissertation on matrimony with the following profound reflections: — /‘Women ain’t so particular as men. There ain’t a man but’ll find some woman to have him 1 If every woman could get a man, there wouldn’t he .so many old maids. Down in our village there was a man wlxo hadn’t any arms or legs, but, goodness me ! even he got a Wife. She came to call with him one day, and she’d fixed up a soap-box on wheels and was drawing him. along as comfy as you please, and; she never made a cent, out of him, ' for he wasn’t freak; Now I’d just like to see a man up and'do that for a woman, I guess! No, Women ain’t so particular.” “The reason I am so popular,” said-a friend of mine, frankly, “is because I .flatter the men to the top of their bent Vanity and love make the world go round*—vanity first, and love a long way after. NotMng else.

“Tell a woman she is perfect and she doubts you—sometimes. But tell a man that (one can in all sorts of ways), why, he only thinks it is his due —possibly he'will think you are clever. Most men are stupid—l don’t mean their working brains, their bread-and-butter brains, but their society brains. They swallow anything you tell them. They originate everything in this blessed world but—conversation.

“It a man converses he discourses and he improves your mind. Now yu; don’t always want to have your nimJ improved. I don't say he doasn t know hew to make love! hut that doesn’t count, for, after all, making love is, often as not, silence a deiix. So if he isn’t improving your mind or making love he is stranded', and that is where we. women come in:’ I don’t want my mind improved at

an afternoon tea, nor do I wish to be made love to oyer an uninspiring biscuit, and I should feel eternally disgraced if either of us looked bored; so I give him leading questions like sugarplums, and while he nibbles away at each in turn till he nas sucked it up, I have learnt to loqk at him with all my eyes—a kind of subdued rapture which I adjust according to the man, and then I detach my mind and consider what the clever stupid can talk about next. It isn’t necessary to do anything hut to smile, especially if' you have nice teeth, as he does all the talking; but he’ll think you are the cleverest woman going. Possibly you are, only he doesn’t really know how : clever you are! There are some women you have to treat in the same way, and they are either very distinguished and spoilt or they are very influential, or they have missions; but it’s always a bore, and unless they are 'on the make’—a very ill-bred expression, I think —it’s tiresome, and doesn’t pay. I don’t mind being bored for the sake of a man, but I really won’t be bored for the sake of a woman. But, my dear, it is very fatiguing at best, and no wonder the women crowd into retreats and nervine asylums. It isn’t the place that kills, but the unearthly dullness. After I have talked to half

a dozen men for whom I make conversation I go home to bed, and the vitality I have left wouldn’t be enough for an able-bodied worm. -

“Do I ever find a man who is interested in me if he is nob in love with me ? Never. Yes, if he is in love with me! Thats another story.; Then everything me interests him, but, perhaps, even then only because I am his temporary ideal. I daresay it’s only another form of selfishness, bless him! The stupidity of men! That’s the reason they are so fatuous; they don’t understand ! Find me the man who isn’t under the impression that some woman is hopelessly in love with him, and only because she - has taken such pains to smile and coo at him, which she generally does to keep her hand in; any man is to her an instrument on which she, as an artist, finds ft serviceable to play a few scales. To call men the ruling sex! They are the ruled sex, and they get married by the women who want them most.”