* * *

The way of man with a maid may have been too wonderful for Agur; now-a-days the way of a man with a married woman would puzzle a wiser than he.

What is the attitude to be maintained towards the too complaisant spouse of an honorable friend?  That is a problem will puzzle weak men without end.  Of that fatal and fateful dilemma when a wife or a husband falls victim to the wiles of another, there are, for the delinquent, two and only two horns (and it is a moot question upon which it is preferable to be impaled):  Flight—­either from the victor or the victrix.  Yet

To some it is no anomaly to pray God’s blessing upon a liaison.  But these folk are to be pitied; for

A clandestine love always works havoc—­havoc to all three. (4)

(4) Cf.  Platus:  “Malus clandestinus est amor; damnum ’st merum.”

Will men and women never learn what trouble they lay up in store for themselves by breaking their plighted troths?

* * * * *

VII.  On Beauty

“La beaute’ pour moi c’est la divinite’ visible, c’est le bonheur palpable, c’est le ciel descendu sur terre.”  —­Theophile Gautier

Beauty, they say, is but skin-deep.  That is quite deep enough to enslave mankind.  As a matter of fact, it is much deeper:  for, to say nothing of health and good-spirits,

Beneath true beauty lies an admirable or a loveable character.  And yet—­or, perhaps, and therefore—­

If by some mischance beauty should arouse our resentment, with what different eyes we regard it!

* * *

The feeling for beauty is probably more highly developed in man than in woman. (N.  B. Perhaps this is the source of the beauty of women.) Nevertheless,

It is a question that perhaps will never be settled, how much value should be placed upon mere beauty.  For

Man soon tires of mere beauty.  In fact, man, the inconstant creature, soon tires of mere anything.

* * *

Beauty should never be analyzed.  At sight of graceful neck, who speaks of “musculus sterno-cleido-mastoideus”; at touch of moist red lips, who thinks upon the corpuscles of Paccini?

* * *

More women are wooed for their complexions than for their characters.

* * *

Could women only know it, nothing can add to their charms:  how provokingly delightful is the uniformed demureness of an hospital nurse beside the elaborate bedizenments of a woman of fashion!

* * *

The most beautiful thing known among men is:  a good woman.  And this is not an anomaly.

* * *

She who captures a man by a single charm, be it even beauty, holds him by a weak chain.

Think not it was merely beauty that made Helen or Cleopatra historic.

Beauty is much, and grace is much; but there is a charm more subtle and potent than these.