neglected to train them in the art of living that we have to deal; the
man with whom feminine influence--refining, broadening, softening,
graciously smoothing out soul-wrinkles, and generously polishing off
sharp mental corners--has had no part. It need not necessarily mean
men who have not encountered feminine influence, but it does mean
those who never have yielded to it. The natural and to-be-looked-for
conceit of youth may have been the barrier which prevented their
yielding. There is a time when the youth of twenty knows more than any
one on earth could teach him, and more than he ever will know again; a
time when, no matter how kind his heart, he is incased in a mental
haughtiness before which plain Wisdom is dumb. But a time will come
when the keenness of some girl's stiletto of wit will prick the empty
bubble of his flamboyant egoism, and he will, for the first time,
learn that he is but an untrained man under thirty-five.

This elastic classification does not obtain with either geniuses or
fools. It deals with the average man as the average girl knows him,
and may refer to every man in her acquaintance or only to one. It
certainly _must_ refer to one! Misery loves company to such an extent
that I could not bear to think that there was any girl living who did
not occasionally have to grapple with the problem of at least one man
in the raw, if only for her own discipline.

You cannot argue with the untrained man under thirty-five. In fact, I
never argue with anybody, either man or woman, because women are not
reasonable beings and men are too reasonable. I never am willing to
follow a chain of reasoning to its logical conclusion, because, if I
do, men can make me admit so many things that are not true. I abhor a
syllogism. Alas, how often have I picked my cautious way through
three-quarters of one, only to sit down at the critical moment,