The Man Who Pleases and the Woman Who Charms by John A. Cone (books to read in a lifetime .txt) 📕

and mental organism that they exercise a depressing influence over their associates. They have a negative, flabby spirit that seems to operate, speaking figuratively, much as a wet shoe does upon one who is compelled to wear it. They draw upon the nervous strength and exhaust the patience of those who are compelled to be much in their company. But there are not many of this type. Most of us could make far more progress in acquiring social graces and in the art of pleasing than we do.

Let us now consider some of the particular qualities which render a man pleasing to the opposite sex.

Of course different types of men please different women. Some women care little for the moral element in men. They do not admire them for their goodness or nobility of character, but rather for their manners and their ability to flatter and say pleasing things. Some women are fascinated by mere brute strength, but they are not many. Rank, wealth, and social position are very attractive to some, but these things do not make the man himself more attractive to the true woman.

While a girl is young, she may go into raptures over "a cameo profile, a Burnes-Jones head of hair, or a pre-Raphaelite languor and pallor," but these things are bound to pall, and become absolutely distasteful. Some even admire downright wickedness in men, and these are the women who send delicacies to murderers in prison, and overwhelm them with bouquets. But, fortunately, these types represent but a small fraction of the fair sex, and this chapter has to do only with the great majority; the intelligent, moral, cultured women of the land. What qualities in men are most attractive to them?

Physical beauty is always attractive in either sex, yet the handsome man has the advantage of his plainer rival only in this--he is able to draw attention to himself at once. He must, however, have something more to hold that attention. He may be physically an Apollo, but if he be ill-mannered, dull or ignorant, he will stand no chance beside the man skilled in the artful polished ways of what is called society, who is master of that grace of manner and flexibility of speech which more than wealth, reputation, or personal attractiveness, win their way with women.

It has been proven, again and again, that even ugliness of face and form is not, by any means, a bar to popularity with women, and while we are often amazed at the choice which brilliant, beautiful women sometimes make from a crowd of admirers, at the bottom of every apparent fantastic selection, there is a solid, and, usually, a sensible reason.

Ernest Renan was certainly not handsome. He was exceedingly corpulent, his complexion was said to resemble nothing else so closely as tallow. He had claw-shaped hands, bushy gray eyebrows, and thin gray hair, yet wherever he went into society he was sure to be the center of an admiring group of women. He was not fascinating by reason of his ugliness, but in spite of it. There was enough in the subtle charm of his manner, and the melodious flow of his conversation, to make up for all outward deficiencies.

Liszt was not a handsome man--quite the contrary; yet probably no other man ever lived who exercised a more magnetic and potent influence over women. Even when he had become gaunt and old, his eyes dim, his blonde hair snow-white, his spare, lean figure wrapped in a black, priestly gown, he was followed about by a train of fair admirers.

Chauteaubriand could charm at eighty-four, the Abbe Liszt at seventy-five, and Aaron Burr--who was by no means handsome--had at seventy a charm of manner that was irresistible.

The fact is, one cannot recall half a dozen very talented men who were admired for their personal beauty. Pope was very plain; Dr. Johnson was no better; Mirabeau was "the ugliest man in France," and yet he was the greatest favorite with the fair sex.

These examples are not cited to prove that women do not care for physical beauty in men. On the contrary, that is a very strong attraction, but not the most powerful factor in holding them. Women more frequently prize men for their sterling qualities of mind than men do women. A perfection of physical beauty rarely associates itself with great mental ability in either sex, but still there have been some notable exceptions, especially among women, and every pretty woman who reads this may consider herself one of these exceptions.

As a general thing, the man who pleases is the man who understands. It does not matter much to a woman whether a man has great and brilliant thoughts of his own, if he comprehends her wishes and her feelings, as well as her thoughts. He should, if he desires to please, make a careful study of that mysterious and complex thing--a woman's nature. He must understand that it is of a finer fibre than his own; that it is sensitive and easily hurt. He should have sentiment, but not be a sentimentalist. He will be wise, indeed, if he can skilfully draw the line between the two things. "Sentiment is divine: sentimentalism absurd." He should be able to say much in little and he must not be a chatterer. A woman who talks too much becomes tiresome; a man who is an aimless talker is an intolerable bore to both sexes.

Few men understand a woman. They do not look at things from her point of view, and, therefore, do not realize to what extent civilized life has permitted her to assume that convention of manner and those civilities of speech which are in some harmless degree hypocritical. It could not be otherwise. Her ideal of a man is a very high one, but she rarely meets him, and so she accepts the one who comes nearest to her ideal and makes the most of the situation. She would that he were different, but a woman can love in spite of very many things. Usually she is obliged to if to love at all. She is much cleverer at love-making than a man. "She is an artist where he is a crude workman, and she does not go through a love scene without realizing how much better she could have done it if the title role had been given to her."

If she is a woman of sensibility, she is shocked by a hundred disagreeable habits which many men think justifiable. She is repelled by awkwardness of manner, coarse modes of speech, by carelessness of person and dress, and yet, for all that, she loves.

The lover who is most successful in retaining the affection of a sweetheart or a wife is the one who expresses over and over again the love and the tenderness he feels. Women, more than men, like to hear things talked about. They are far more wide-awake to the value of trifles, and more sensitive to changes of mood. They are given to saying in many ways, with delicate variations, what a man is satisfied to state once for all, even to state badly.

A man will believe in a woman's love and be satisfied with far fewer visible tokens of it than are necessary to confirm his tenderness and keep her convinced of it.

The truth is that a man's power of pleasing does not depend upon some occult quality of which no account can be given, but upon the degree in which he holds certain attractive qualities--innate or acquired. We have no difficulty in understanding any single one of these qualities, yet when a man possesses such a combination of them as to entitle him to the term "fascinating" we pronounce it incomprehensible, and fall back upon that vague term, "personal magnetism."

The personal elements which are most conducive to our influence over others are, in a broad way: good manners, a pleasing voice, the ability to converse well, personal neatness, taste in dress, tact, good morals, culture and refinement, physical beauty, and intellectual force. We are pleasing or offensive just in proportion to our possession of these very desirable characteristics, and, possibly, what we term "personal magnetism" is simply the result of a well-balanced development of some, or all, of these enviable characteristics.

THE WOMAN WHO CHARMS

 

Look on this woman. There is not beauty, not brilliant sayings, nor distinguished power to serve you; but all see her gladly; her whole air and impression are healthful. Manners require time, as nothing is more vulgar than haste. EMERSON.

Possessed with such a gentle, sovereign grace, With such enchanting presence and discourse. COMEDY OF ERRORS.

She's a most exquisite lady. OTHELLO.

Is it the handsome woman? Yes, sometimes, but not always. Beauty is always attractive, but the handsome woman has the same advantage only that the handsome man possesses--she draws attention to herself at once. If she has nothing but her beauty to rely upon, she does not hold the attention.

It was Balzac who reminded us of the fact that nearly all of the most celebrated attachments in history were inspired by women in whom there were noticeable physical defects. Mme. de Pompadour, Joanna of Naples, Cleopatra, La Valliere--in fact, almost all the women whom a romantic love has invested with a halo of interest--were not without imperfections and even infirmities, while nearly all the women whose beauty is described to us as perfect, have been finally unhappy in their loves.

"Perhaps," says Balzac, "men live by sentiment more than by pleasure. Perhaps the charm, wholly physical, of a beautiful woman has its bounds, while the charm, essentially moral, of a woman of moderate beauty may be infinite."

Whether this be true or not, women surely overestimate the influence of mere physical beauty to attract and hold men. Madame de Stael, whose dominion over the hearts of all those with whom she came in contact is well known, declared that she would gladly give up all her gifts of person, and all her learning, if she could receive beauty in exchange. It was fortunate for her that her wish was not granted, for, had it been, probably she would have found her kingdom slipping away. While she did not have a beautiful face, she possessed physical characteristics and personal traits which rendered her absolutely fascinating.

To a sensible man nothing is quite so insipid as a vain, brainless, tactless beauty, whose opinions are but echoes, and who imagines that her beauty alone will hold him chained to her chariot.

Beauty holds for a time, but after a man's eyes are satisfied, he must be entertained, and the plain girl who possesses brains and tact need have no fear of her more beautiful rival. Modern research has proved that not Sappho, not Aspasia, nor even Cleopatra were women who would have attracted any special attention by reason of their physical beauty. Their highest charm was intellectual--the possession of an "immensity to give," as Plutarch expresses it, in the way of grace and accomplishment.

The idea that plain girls are allowed to run to waste as "unappropriated blessings," is not supported by evidence, for we are constantly meeting wives far plainer than the majority of the unmarried women of our acquaintance; and it frequently happens that a man who has a wife physically