Produced by Katherine for Chrissy, Dorcas, and Bryan
by Arnold Haultain
Boston : Houghton Mifflin Company : New York
310 The Riverside PressCambridge, MassachusettsU.S.A.
Copyright, 1909, by Theodore Arnold Haultain
All Rights Reserved
Entered at Stationers' Hall
This Edition is limited to five hundred and forty numbered copies ofwhich this is number 245
To Emma Mellicent Audrey
PHAIDRA: ti touth o dae legousin anthropous eran
TROPHOS: aediston, o pai, tauton a lgeinon th ama
-Euripides
I. On Girls
II. On Men
III. On Women
IV. On Love
V. On Lovers
VI. On Making Love
VII. On Beauty
VIII. On Courtship
IX. On Men and Women
X. On Jealousy
XI. On Kisses and Kissing
XII. On Engagements and Being Engaged
XIII. On Marriage and Married Life
XIV. On This Human Heart
". . . aphorism are seldom couched in such terms, that they should betaken as they sound precisely, or according to the widest extent ofsignification; but do commonly need exposition, and admit exception:otherwise frequently they would not only clash with reason andexperience, but interfere, thwart, and supplant one another."—Issac Barrow
"The very essence of an aphorism is that slight exaggeration which makesit more biting whilst less rigidly accurate."—Leslie Stephen
I. On Girls
"A Pearl, A Girl."
-Browning
There are of course, girls and girls; yet at heart they are pretty muchalike. In age, naturally, they differ wildly. But this is a thornysubject. Suffice it to say that all men love all girls-the maid ofsweet sixteen equally with the maid of untold age.
* * *
There is something exasperatingly something-or-otherish about girls. Andthey know it—which makes them more something-or-otherish still:—thereis no other word for it.
* * *
A girl is a complicated thing. It is made up of clothes, smiles, apompadour, things of which space and prudence forbid the enumerationhere. These things by themselves do not constitute a girl which isobvious; nor is any one girl without these things which is not tooobvious. Where the things end and the girl begins many men have tried tofind out.
Many girls would like to be men—except on occasions. At least so theysay, but perhaps this is just a part of their something-or-otherishness.Why they should want to be men, men cannot conceive. Men pale beforethem, grow hot and cold before them, run before them (and after them),swear by them (and at them), and a bit of a chit of a thing in shortskirts and lisle-thread stockings will twist able-bodied males round herlittle finger.
It is an open secret that girls are fonder of men than they are of oneanother—which is very lucky for the men.
Girls differ; and the same girl is different at different times. Whenshe is by herself, she is one thing. When she is with other girls she isanother thing. When she is with a lot of men, she is a third sort ofthing. When she is with a man. . . But this baffled even Agur the sonof Jakeh....