第17章

ON THE PREPARATION AND EMPLOYMENT OF LOVE PHILTRES

Occasionally a friend will ask me some such question as this, Do you prefer dark women or fair? Another will say, Do you like tall women or short? A third, Do you think light-hearted women, or serious, the more agreeable company? I find myself in the position that, once upon a time, overtook a certain charming young lady of taste who was asked by an anxious parent, the years mounting, and the family expenditure not decreasing, which of the numerous and eligible young men, then paying court to her, she liked the best.

She replied, that was her difficulty.She could not make up her mind which she liked the best.They were all so nice.She could not possibly select one to the exclusion of all the others.What she would have liked would have been to marry the lot, but that, she presumed, was impracticable.

I feel I resemble that young lady, not so much, perhaps, in charm and beauty as indecision of mind, when questions such as the above are put to me.It is as if one were asked one's favourite food.

There are times when one fancies an egg with one's tea.On other occasions one dreams of a kipper.Today one clamours for lobsters.

To-morrow one feels one never wishes to see a lobster again; one determines to settle down, for a time, to a diet of bread and milk and rice-pudding.Asked suddenly to say whether I preferred ices to soup, or beefsteaks to caviare, I should be nonplussed.

I like tall women and short, dark women and fair, merry women and grave.

Do not blame me, Ladies, the fault lies with you.Every right-thinking man is an universal lover; how could it be otherwise?

You are so diverse, yet each so charming of your kind; and a man's heart is large.You have no idea, fair Reader, how large a man's heart is: that is his trouble--sometimes yours.

May I not admire the daring tulip, because I love also the modest lily? May I not press a kiss upon the sweet violet, because the scent of the queenly rose is precious to me?

"Certainly not," I hear the Rose reply."If you can see anything in her, you shall have nothing to do with me.""If you care for that bold creature," says the Lily, trembling, "you are not the man I took you for.Good-bye.""Go to your baby-faced Violet," cries the Tulip, with a toss of her haughty head."You are just fitted for each other."And when I return to the Lily, she tells me that she cannot trust me.She has watched me with those others.She knows me for a gad-about.Her gentle face is full of pain.

So I must live unloved merely because I love too much.

My wonder is that young men ever marry.The difficulty of selection must be appalling.I walked the other evening in Hyde Park.The band of the Life Guards played heart-lifting music, and the vast crowd were basking in a sweet enjoyment such as rarely woos the English toiler.I strolled among them, and my attention was chiefly drawn towards the women.The great majority of them were, Isuppose, shop-girls, milliners, and others belonging to the lower middle-class.They had put on their best frocks, their bonniest hats, their newest gloves.They sat or walked in twos and threes, chattering and preening, as happy as young sparrows on a clothes line.And what a handsome crowd they made! I have seen German crowds, I have seen French crowds, I have seen Italian crowds; but nowhere do you find such a proportion of pretty women as among the English middle-class.Three women out of every four were worth looking at, every other woman was pretty, while every fourth, one might say without exaggeration, was beautiful.As I passed to and fro the idea occurred to me: suppose I were an unprejudiced young bachelor, free from predilection, looking for a wife; and let me suppose--it is only a fancy--that all these girls were ready and willing to accept me.I have only to choose! I grew bewildered.

There were fair girls, to look at whom was fatal; dark girls that set one's heart aflame; girls with red gold hair and grave grey eyes, whom one would follow to the confines of the universe;baby-faced girls that one longed to love and cherish; girls with noble faces, whom a man might worship; laughing girls, with whom one could dance through life gaily; serious girls, with whom life would be sweet and good, domestic-looking girls--one felt such would make delightful wives; they would cook, and sew, and make of home a pleasant, peaceful place.Then wicked-looking girls came by, at the stab of whose bold eyes all orthodox thoughts were put to a flight, whose laughter turned the world into a mad carnival; girls one could mould; girls from whom one could learn; sad girls one wanted to comfort; merry girls who would cheer one; little girls, big girls, queenly girls, fairy-like girls.

Suppose a young man had to select his wife in this fashion from some twenty or thirty thousand; or that a girl were suddenly confronted with eighteen thousand eligible young bachelors, and told to take the one she wanted and be quick about it? Neither boy nor girl would ever marry.Fate is kinder to us.She understands, and assists us.In the hall of a Paris hotel I once overheard one lady asking another to recommend her a milliner's shop.

"Go to the Maison Nouvelle," advised the questioned lady, with enthusiasm."They have the largest selection there of any place in Paris.""I know they have," replied the first lady, "that is just why Idon't mean to go there.It confuses me.If I see six bonnets I can tell the one I want in five minutes.If I see six hundred I come away without any bonnet at all.Don't you know a little shop?"Fate takes the young man or the young woman aside.