successive luring makes defection simpler for a man. Practice tends
towards perfection in most things; perhaps it is the single exception,
love, which proves the rule.

Three delusions among women are widespread and painful. Marriage is
currently supposed to reform a man, a rejected lover is heartbroken for
life, and, if "the other woman" were only out of the way, he would come
back. Love sometimes reforms a man, but marriage does not. The rejected
lover suffers for a brief period,--feminine philosophers variously
estimate it, but a week is a generous average,--and he who will not come
in spite of "the other woman" is not worth having at all.

[Sidenote: "Not Things, but Men"]

Emerson says: "The things which are really for thee gravitate to thee."
One is tempted to add the World's Congress motto--"Not things, but men."

There is no virtue in women which men cultivate so assiduously as
forgiveness. They make one think that it is very pretty and charming to
forgive. It is not hygienic, however, for the woman who forgives easily
has a great deal of it to do. When pardon is to be had for the asking,
there are frequent causes for its giving. This, of course, applies to
the interesting period before marriage.

[Sidenote: Post-Nuptial Sins]

Post-nuptial sins are atoned for with gifts; not more than once in a
whole marriage with the simple, manly words, "Forgive me, dear, I was
wrong." It injures a man's conceit vitally to admit he has made a
mistake. This is gracious and knightly in the lover, but a married man,