Courtship and Marriage

1895

Some New Light on the Subject by an English Writer.

An English writer has recently been giving some what he calls "new light on love, courtship and marriage" that is worth considering. Anybody, he says, who has not yet fallen in love can readily raise the vision of the subsequent dear one by looking at himself in the glass. If he be stout, the girl will probably be thin; if he have a snub nose, his love will center about the Roman one; if he be dark, ten to one a blond ultimately captures him. Thus nature corrects defects and strives to realize her ideal. The same holds good in a measure of the mental qualities. A fool should make it his business to fall in love with a clever woman, and, conversely, a wise man should marry a fool if he has any respect for nature. Note, further, that girls with Roman noses are, as a rule, good house managers, but against this amiable quality must be set the fact that your Roman nose is essentially managing in every direction and is not content with domestic duties alone.

Your Roman nose, in fact, requires a complete surrender and is rarely happy till she gets it. Noses, he thinks, are a leading index to character. A void a sharp nose. If, besides being sharp, it is tinted with varying shades of red or blue or is blue pointed, there is an asperity of temper which it would not be well for you to encounter. Let your converse with "blue points" be confined to the oyster bar, then. Avoid the blue nosed maiden as you would the blue nosed orang outang — both are capable of infinite mischief. He also cautions us against red hair and bushy eyebrows. In selecting a husband "choose a sensible man, one of solid, mature judgment. A broad, perpendicular forehead, with the upper part somewhat projecting over horizontal eyebrows, and vivacious, deep set eyes are said to denote practical common sense and mature judgment." Excellent advice, only a bit too general, as is his infallible recipe for winning his love. To do so a woman must possess womanly graces, the power of setting out her qualities so as to inspire the tender passion and a gift of fascination. That is the whole secret.