BBP
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The Art Of Being Loved
This is the first time I've translated such a long text from French, and such an old one too! The booklet was first released in 1948, and the
French language has changed since then: at times even my dictionary couldn't help. At these times Linguee.com was a great help: a site that puts
together a lot of translations, and if you're looking for a phrase, type it in and you can see numerous translations of your struggling point in use.
There are probably a lot of lines that could've been phrased better, so don't be shy to make any suggestions to improvement!
As you'll be able to read for yourself, the booklet is a curious mixture of observations that range from rather useful to downright infuriating sexism
to bizarre purple prose. If you're in favour of feminism, tie your hands behind your back lest you punch in the screen.
The art of being loved, by Dominique Le Bourg.
Preface
Happiness is a closed door. One knocks, but it doesn't open. One tries to force it, but it resists. And one loses himself in vain efforts to try to
achieve a happiness of which one thinks it's close, but it remains inaccessible.
This door, that changes life once it's open, has a key one can make oneself. Keys of love, of health, of the joy of home, of art, keys of everything
that makes life beautiful, this book collection puts it in your hands. Its goal is not to change destiny, but yourself: it's to initiate you into the
little secrets that will open the doors in your path.
The first work in this collection, as the title indicates: “The art of being loved”, is devoted to Love.
Honour to whom honour is.
LOVE
Love, the beautiful love is the greatest thing in the world.
And it's for the love, to spread joy, tenderness and life on the world, that women were made. All women...
“To who may read this: salute your master, he is it, becomes it or should be.”
We choose not to be a philosopher, nor a moralist, and we don't wish to speak earnestly of love. Our purpose is to, at the stroke of a pen , show the
thousand little things that can make happiness or misery for lovers, and the light exchange of gestures, thoughts and words that are to happiness in
love, what the smell of the earth and the sunlight are to the intoxication of spring.
PRELUDES
The Intangibles.
Like the lark, love is easily captured by the thousand reflections sent by the mirror of the coquette.
It's up to the grace of the spirit and the treasures of the heart to never let them get captured to give him profound reasons for loving you.But it's
up to the intangibles of the feminine charm to ensnare the most futile pretexts: a passing smile at the heart of an unknown look, the promise of an
approach, the tepid wake of a perfume...
The seduction only needs to make a puppet. Unfortunately, the merit, without seduction, is not enough to make a woman.
All the charming care that you use to please are quiet “attentions” by women towards men, and each man receives them like an homage to their destiny.
Cheeky masculine fatuity? No, the first rule of an unforgettable game...
The Rule Of The Game: There are games that one plays to amuse oneself, like children. There are others with clever rules where one plays to risk
losing or winning. The great Love is an earnest and pure game, where one plays nothing, where one gives everything. But the rites of seduction are
more a game of skill. It's up to you to show the game of grace.
Never forget that you play with fire, that is to say: with yourself, your future perhaps, your health.
Men, they don't risk much, and that's why your prudency seems calculated to them.
The Meetings. Do not yield to the vain pleasure of being sought. Avoid the Don Juans whose sentimental profession is to add names to their list. Their
technique is developed by a lengthy practice. But, sophisticated as they may be, only the hunt excites them, and even in the realm of “adventure”, a
deceiving parody of love, they are but mediocre. Your dream will have no chance to last if it takes place in your environment: the “love at first
sight”, if at first sight it is – and true love at first sight is rare – doesn't choose the place where it occurs. But you will do a thousand times
better if you meet your prince among your colleagues or with friends or on the street or on holiday.
A little research on him and his character isn't forbidden, and could be very useful to you.
The Dares:
At least at the start,skillfully space out your dates to make him desire you more, to leave the pleasure of thought. Make your first date a perfect
moment, so its memory will be a moment of happiness that will last a lifetime.
Happy lovers carry with them that what can beautify the desert. -Sainte-Beuve
-”I will see you again,”, you tell him later, so dainty in your summer dress” or perhaps... “as luminous as your sombre dress”... Choose it with love,
with taste and simplicity, this dress of an invisible memory portrait.
The time and decor give the date a subtle atmosphere. Sentimental in a garden, it'll be more intimate by the fireside, more artificial in the street,
more exciting underneath a dusk sky. But whatever the hour may be, love will fog it with golden poetry
Unpunctuality:
Five minutes are allowed for “watch error”. Gallantry tolerates these five minutes.
Then the true tardiness starts...
The time goes by, the time goes by, my Lady. Alas, not the time, but we are going. -Ronsard
It's dangerous to let a man wait in a public space: there are plenty of beautiful women...
It's no less dangerous to let him wait in a deserted place: there will be many bad thoughts. First impatience, then boredom and often exasperation.
His time is at least equally precious as yours, don't abuse it selfishly. When you finally arrive, don't try to pretend you weren't aware. Perhaps you
forgot the time in front of your mirror trying to make yourself pretty for him. Don't tell him that: he might not believe you. Apologize politely, be
sorry you have kept him waiting. Then, give him your motive, doesn't matter what, good or bad, because already with all the joy of having you near
him, he won't listen to you.
And be on the dot next time!
The conversations:
Let him talk. Listen a lot Talk little, and even less about yourself. But listen attentively. Teach yourself.
Don't give him, even if he gives you the opportunity, a detailed account of your life, with your family misfortunes and your previous bad luck.
If he insists, start a nondescript story, and interrupt yourself occasionally to ask him questions, about his childhood preferably. When he gets
carried away with his subject, he'll forget his own questions and finds a lot of charm in your conversation.
Don't play child: you'll seem less young.
Don't say bad things about men but good things (even if your imagination has to work hard to provide them) he'll think that you misunderstood their
attentions. Don't speak poorly of women either: you'll destroy himself right before his eyes.
Don't say your past is abolished: it may be true but he'll believe he himself is a victim of your forgetting him, this quickly. Simply say that your
life starts today.
And above all, above all...
Never talk about the future the first time, no matter how much you feel like it.
The woman, from her early childhood on, dreams of playing dame and mother. In her, she cradles a hesitant instinct of a bird building a nest. She
dreams of living a snuggled life.
The little boy dreams of heroic adventures and voyages to the Antipods. When grown up, he remains a shady independant. If you talk to him about a
future, he'll flee the trap of marriage, “the rope around the neck”, and yield the irresistable impulse to flee.
Leave him the initiative of projects. Instead, set to expect nothing from your future but yourself. His freedom needs to weigh on him and that he
offers it to you spontaneously.
If he remains evasive, it's because he doesn't love you, or hasn't done everything the way you wish it.
In love, one is often happier with the things one doesn't know than with the things one knows. – La Rochefoucauld
Absence and letters: A short absence and he might regret your presence; a long absence and he might forget about you altogether. In love, the fire
wind extinguishes the small, and kindles the great.
For those who love passionately, “absence is the greatest of miseries.” There is a good remedy for calming bleakness: letters.
Write regularly. Nothing is scarier than uncertainty, more severe every day when the postman passes by without delivering. Nothing is as sweet as an
attentive trustee.
And thinking too much about what you're going to write is as dangerous as missing a date. If you're already intimate, don't search for words. Speak
freely of your tenderness. The words that are as old as the world are still the ones that touch us the most, and the closing formula is often read the
first.
Take care of the presentation, the paper, the writing, without affected research. A lingering trace of your perfume, and your presence will appear,
like magic, from the nostalgic fragrances as soon as the envelope is opened.
No ink smudges, no lipstick: those are in poor taste.
Guard your love letters piously.
It's true that, if you are happy, you will be too absorbed by everyday happiness to read yesterday's testimonies.
It's true that if love makes you suffer, they will become an inexhaustible source of bitterness.
It's true that if your heart consoles itself, they will become so perfectly strange you will not recognize them anymore.
But guard your love letters piously, because “the heart has its reasons”...
Attentiveness:
Teach him to never confuse intimacy wth familiarity. If carelessness is found guilty in simple relationships, it is unacceptable between lovers. Above
all, it's up to you that from the start he takes part in creating a courteous atmosphere. Soon it will feel natural to him to treat you as a woman,
rather than as a friend, to adapt his speed to yours, to offer to carry your packages (except for those like a smapp bag or a hat box,that make a man
look silly – an obliging man shouldn't be ridiculed), or climb the stairs to get you a coat when the wind gets chilly.
Avoid at all costs to blame him (“You see how you are...”). To the contrary, inspire his spontaneity, gently suggest these things that escape him,
because these little attentions, so necessary for a woman, are far from being innate to our chivalrous knights.
A forgotten birthday or name-day can often put a spanner in the works. Women are, in this respect attach a semi-liturgical importance to some dates.
Don't demand too much from failing memory (if it's only failing memory) and, rather than to have to deal with confusion, make sure to write the day of
celebration weeks in advance in his diary, using large letters. You'll benefit from his recognition.
Presents:
Gifts don't take nearly as much from the heart of the person who offers it, as it takes recognition from the one who accepts it. Ovid, the classic
poet of the Art of Loving, wished the women who “refused the art of Venus after accepting presents” to the Devine Inferno. Don't allow yourself to get
“engaged” lightly, even if the refusal torments you. Flowers and chocolates (so quickly faded, so easily eaten) never engaged anyone. So, no scruples.
Don't give any presents yourself until certain borders have been crossed between you two. By giving too early, you put yourself in a suspicious role.
Masculine presents are difficult to choose. You could opt for a surprise (and risk it might not be too good), or to be sure to please. Don't hesitate:
ask him about his wishes and his taste, and don't buy anything unless you do it wisely. And, to give him a tie, take him to the tailor... So that he
to, will come to respect you.
Gained Time: That what you “require from love”, as they called it in days of yore, is nothing but yourself, if it is sincere. As sincere as he, you
hope, at the same time, that his love gives you a moral – and material – security that protects you from the risks you take. But do you love him
enough to let him take charge of your soul and body? … Love is blind, they say. Give him the time to remove his blindfold.
Woman is made of fire, and the man of oak, and the devil blows. – Spanish proverb
Favours:
Ward off any sense of victory in the eye of your lover after performing the slightest favour. Don't immediately lavish him in what he wants to
conquer. Fear that, after the fatal generosity, he'll suspect you to offer it lightly at first-come base what you want to give to him alone.
But, beware: men hate prudes: be earnest in your resignation and light about your strategic retreats.
“Sly maneuvers and mistrust,” you think, “if one is in love...” Yes, if one is in love, but the key is to be sure.
Women have a lot more moral sense when they're not in love, than when they are in love. -La Rochefoucault
Kissing:
There's the kiss on the forehead, fatherly; the kiss on the eyes, appeasing; the kiss on the nose, playful; the kiss on the cheeks, between cousins;
those are harmless but serve as tempting invitation to other, more perfidious, rather indiscrete kisses in the neck and the one, whispering like a
sensual secret, kiss in the earshell. In the end, there's the kiss on the lips. The Americans, who are prrecise people, distinguish between the
“French” and “American” kiss. The last one is a rather chaste exchange between lips that reminds us of cooing parakeets. The “French kiss”, on the
other hand is this voloptuous possession, that prefigures another, where the women close their eyes, giving themselves over.
A small kiss commits to nothing, says the madman. It commits so wel that an imprudent embrace stretches between two sheets or on a haystack.
If the kissing troubles you “deliciously”, remember it would disturb you a lot more “imperiously” if he dominates you, to full force of his
desires.
“Don't give any other kiss than the one on the ring finger, my love,” is a modest advice that the devil himself sings, in Faust.
The “last outrages”
Since the blonde Eve, her daughters have had easy failures. Curiosity trains them, frivolity strays them, voluptuousness precipitates them... and, too
often, reality deceives them.
Don't trust your senses: they only want to betray you. It often takes very little to overtake the virtue of a woman: a moment of disarray or solitude,
one wine too many, a night too perfumed (night is love's accomplice), a spring rich with too much saps...
It's more safe to flee temptation rather than to hope to resist it. Your strength will let you down. All women defend their honesty at the moment they
surrender.
Is it really, you say, the best advice, this “keep yourself”, this “mistrust yourself”, this defensive strategy?
My god, yes. The longer you refuse with kindness and firmness, and you'll be rare, precious desirable and dignified for true love.Be hard to get, as
much for yourself as for the one you love. Don't be happy with a banal love that will collapse at the first hurdle.
This is where an element of internal equilibrum and success in life comes in: the rupture. It's possible that you sense it and that it defines itself
in front of you, a little clearer every day, the looseness and the desire for freedom. Don't be one of those that don't want to see anything. Take the
initiative in the break-up. Don't cling to a dead branch and that cracks under your weight. The fall will be less dangerous if you can jump from the
height that's right for you. Perhaps you'll meet a new desire...
You'll save yourself the torments of a dying love, that of a huiliating love.
On your side, if you have been misguided, know to break in time, without resorting to cowardly curiosity to see what would happen, nor the timid fear
that you won't find any better ones, nor pitiful – and often imaginary – worry about the pain it causes, nor unwillingness to suffer a salutable woe,
it's a courageous and indispensable art.
Love, like luck, smiles at the audacious. Don't cherish jealously the sentimental romantic efforts that entrench you to the present and its thousand
possibilities.
To voluntarily escape the ties, the regrets and the pains of a sterile past, it's a challenge of the good people, it's not a heart problem.
It's excellent to have a healthy nonchalance after a separation. Because a separation is not an end and a failure, but a goodbye to the failure and a
departure to new chances to happiness.
The great secret to seducing a man, is to not let yourself be seduced by him. Weakness, capitulating for the tricks of desire, tricks of desire
provoked by seductive maneuvers, has never been love.
Love is something completely different: it's the free gift of the self, and the fusion of two lives.
In love, it's always too late if you don't believe. -L. de Vilmorin
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BBP
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Time for chapter 2... Next chapter will be The One You've Been Waiting For...
LIVING TOGETHER
It takes a lot of love to love someone your entire life.
It takes even more love to love someone every day of your life.
It seems intolerable to live separated and to envision future apart.However, communal life like love parries a lot of sweetness and attractions, can
become the worst enemy of that same love. It leads against this impulsive, passionate, slow war of usury, war of nerves and frames, towards him, the
sneaky conspiracy of habit.
Protect it against the many ncomprehensable, but foreseeable attacks. Ask yourself honestly what are the chances on love, which the heaven has given
you and in what ways you can saveguard it.
Chances on luck
An entente can be based on a lot of proprieties, likely “warranties” of solidity and durability. They are the ones that preoccupy your parents and
preach reason.
One often speaks of proprieties of age. Again we should well define ths notion of age. There are old people at twenty and juveniles at 50. Civil state
is often in contradiction with the youth or maturity of individuals. It's better to speak of proprieties of temperaments, psychologies.
The proprieties of taste take a lot of place in the happiness of living together. A worldly girl won't ally to a misanthrope,, nor a bourgeois to a
revolutionary, nor an athlete to a book worm. The old law of opposites attract is responsible for a lot of errors. You should get together a lot, take
part in the same pastimes, equally love early rising or late nights, live the same enthusiasms, be happy or unhappy about the same thing – to be
happy, simply put.
On the other hand, characters should look for their complementary: the impulsive tamed by the thinker, the bohemien directed by the practial,
etc...
The proprieties of environment are perhaps even more important. Although there is a romantic prestige in the prince marrying a shepherd girl, nothing
is more regrettable than such a mismatch. Marry in your environment: looking for a better party is always to mismatch.
Women, no doubt you know how to adapt smoothly to the habits and ways of your husband, reach his morals, but don't hope too much that he could walk
the other half of the road, forgetting his childhood and his education.
The ideal, for a good life together, shouldn't be about making all the concessions (this will often become a sort of vindictive compatibility
problem), but to go together so well that there is, in short, not a single grave concession to be made.
On top of this reasonable data, your hapiness depends on intimate decorum dictated by the voice of the heard, on “reasons that Reason doesn't
know”.
Does the agreement between your physical temperaments propose to you both a sane concept of love? Isn't either of you envisioninga love without
children? Is it really “him”, and not love that you love? Is it really “him” and not vaguely the marriage, that is to saythe material management of
your existence and the pleasure of playing lady (or leaving your family) that attracts you?
You love each other “for better and worse”. The better is easy to imagine, but the worse:the mediocrity of daily stains, illnesses, lack of money are
you ready for that? Think also of possibilities and of “occasions” where you must sacrificewithout regret, of pain that he could inflict on you, of
possible infidelities he wants you to forgive, of the old age that will come and will not be soft on you both except for indulgence and serenity of
memories past.
And there are still questions, serious or futile, to which only you have the secret answer, the answer of happiness.
Happiness in your hands
It's not enough to have chances...
The heart is built on certainties. And these certainties cannot be bought in one go. They must patiently be gathered, day by day, and truthfully, as a
grand old lady said: “It was well worth it to have happiness.”
A supple perseverance, a waking intuition, resolutions, that will make your ally most precious to give your life its vivacious quality of
adventure.
You should also, among other things, learn to recognize:
What He Adores
What he adores, is YOU. None other than you. That what you were in his distracted eyes during the first few days of your romance, that image that
crystallized in his dreams and his ideal, a deified image he wrote of in his letters.
Remain that way. It would be a pure scam for a young beauty to change after the marriage, into a cantankerous housewife, for a tender ingenue to
change into a shameless flirt.
Stay yourself. Know that he won't help you with it. They all have, more or less, the mania to want to shape you, mould you to their own guise, which
is bad for your nature, or you may approach them with hostility, or even lose your original charm.
So, be on guard, but allow him to polish you, believe in the astonishing benefits of his influence on you. Then again, the last carelessness is to
install yourself in an easy love. Don't be too malleable, nor modest. So that his heart remains alert. Divert him. Be diverse: the briljant woman with
a bit of strangeness thet he is proud of – but not too calm – to present to his friends, then the little soft creature who's familiar with him with
which he loves to spend day and night.
What he also loves, is your presence.
Your graceful presence in the house...
Never offer hm images that would haunt you if you'd find them in an album. Fear that his bad memory is not this album.
Take care of your neglects, look refined when you go out, so that when you get home, you'll gladly get rid of your old clothes.
Your silent presence too, because a soft silence suits you sometimes, better than gossip. It gives you a sort of spicy mystery that make you less
close to him, and more attractive. They'll soon ask you: “what are you thinking about?”
And because he adores you, well, let him adore you. Give him your tenderness, but it should never be suffocating. Remain the Lady he pampers and
honours and that he should love “more every day, today more than yesterday and less than tomorrow...” Because love diminishes when it doesn't
grow...
What He Loves
Oh, of course, everything that gives material comfort in life: a well-kept house, good meals on time, that is to say when he comes home – clean and
smart children, the bookkeeping up to date, his personal affairs all sorted and all the housekeeping done for which you must have assumed the
responsibility. But there must also be a moral comfort: you must be the loving light of his life.
Listen to him for your own good, so that he'll make you part of his work, his preoccupations, his enthusiasms. And if you don't understand much,
listen to him not with your ears, but wth your heart, without interrupting him with childish cock-and-bull stories.
Cheer at his success, ignore his failures. Instill your faith in him, your faith in the future, even if – and especially if – you start to doubt it.
Nothing sounds as good to him as your admiration: the esteem you have for his character, his intelligence, his energy, tell him this at the moment
when these qualities seem to fail.
Take his burden of care and you you, he will feel rejuvenated and ready to take on the world.
What he also loves, is that you cherish him. All these charming demonstrations of tenderness, fanciful nicknames, loving looks, coaxing gestures, are
welcome in the warmth of intimity. They are frankly bad taste and misplaced when used in public, because they'll make you look ridiculous and put the
onlooker in an embarrassing position.
Even between you two, such sensibilities may be out of tune.
Love is all for you, young woman, and fulfills every moment of your life but he, while having a similar passion for you, can still want to glance at a
newspaper, listen to the news on the radio or absorb himself with his hobby. So don't harass him with your sentimental requirements. Don't ask him
every five minutes if he loves you, wait for him to say it; he'll be more sincere.
Is he tired or suffering? He'll quickly lose his adult grandeur and becomes a little boy again. (But don't say that: he will hate your
sollicitude.)
Like with a little boy, you should take it very seriousy, lavish him with attentions and spoil him immoderately. He has the right to that. However,
don't expect a lot of sympathy for the small comforts you give him. He'll ridicule you for listening too much to yourself.
What he will not scorn anymore, is that people think he's beautiful.Nothing tickles the vanity of men more pleasantly, even though they will deny it
emphatically, than an allusion, or even direct remark, about their physical charms. They have been weaned from that kind of compliments (and often
with good reason!) and delight in it like cats, while sulking their pleasure.
Don't forget to flatter a bit: there will be a touching gratitute from his side. Narcissus, infatuated to death with his reflection in the water, was
a man, not a woman.
In every husband, there's a little sleeping tyrant. Don't wake him. And another thing you should know:
What He Doesn't Like
He doesn't like any failure, even small ones, in your housework, and will voluntarily change it into a tragedy. It is not wrong, but for heaven's
sake, don't let him start a scene over exceptionally salty soup.
He doesn't like being drawn into stories of domestic woes (unless you tell them with a lot of humour) or female gossip.
He doesn't like being enslaved to meticulous order, nor to domestic mania, admonishings about a dirty floor or knocking over the ashtray.
He doesn't like it if you “give him the look” if he brings unexpected friends over for lunch. Hospitality is a noble and charming virtue. And
welcoming guests should be a break of routine!
He doesn't like it, nor does anyone for that matter, to feel leashed. Respect his independance, the free disposition of his time and the contents of
his pockets.
Oh the other hand, it's of poor taste to hear you claim the same privileges. It's up to you to let him allow you, in an atmosphere of esteem and
mutual taste.
What He Hates
dear Lord, these are the things that you don't support yourself, and, in the first place, to be cheated or ridiculed. But that's another story. Not
the story of living together, but the story of living with three (or four) people...
Hateful are “nerves”, crocodile tears, flagrand bad faith, airs of martyrdom, allusions of a triumphant prophet, hints of omniscient superiority, all
the psychological faults, lack of tact, lack of love, simply put. It translates to catastrophical commonplaces: “I told you so”, “In your place,
I'd...”, “You're inconceivable!”, “It's for your own good”,etcetera. Amenities are like a sledgehammer, and Love is on the rake.
Little Dramas.
No man and no woman should underestimate the power of speech, nor the virtue of “sound” to whom it is addressed. Words can hurt more cruelly than
beating can. They leave ugly scars that easily re-open and get infected, and, as delicious as a reconciliation can be, it remains, between two beings
who are insulted, a sort of anvil.
First of all, refrain from the desire to start a good scene.Even if your comedic talent or your nerves call for it: in the same way a thunderstorm is
called for. It's better to take a shower.
Learn how to ask things in a constructive tone, stop your moaning and groaning as if you're perpetually chained to injustice and tyranny.
Never be ashamed to immediately recognize your wrongs. Don't make the slightest futility a matter of principle, your prestige is at stake. Don't
escalate the debate...
If it isn't you, but him, who makes it into a drama, then these suggestions can help you reach an amiable end.
Never display the patience of a saint, it's the worst provocation for your opponent if it is opposing him, and secretly resentful. You'd give him the
desire to kill...
Know how to “glide”, deliberately change the subject of a conversation to one that touches the weak spot of your opponent: one of his projects, his
mother, his son etc...
Disarm by an apropos, a kiss, being baffled... A good formula, if you have a sense of humour, is to mock yourself. This is where we recall the judo
techniques. Your adversary throws all his weight at you and, instead of resisting him, train yourself in overturning.
Differ: if the situation becomes more than your nerves can handle, use the little cold blood you have left to make a banal excuse to wriggle out of
it. And close the door gently on the way out!
When you've just left, you'll notice your own defense works against you.
Great Tragedies.
From small dramas to great tragedies: there's often not a hair's width between them; that would be the opportunity you missed: being silent.
It is harmful to confuse minor grievances with deep disharmony, and to search the “grudge archive” to enlarge the indictment.
It's “The Girl With Green Eyes”, the bilious Jealousy, that hatches sombre quarrels into the world.
Jealousy is the poison of love. Like many poisons, it possesses a stimulating virtue in small doses; in large doses, she corrupts and kills. Don't try
to not be jealous: to sacrifice a sentiment that you want to set free of its services!!!!!!!
If it is true, hide it politely, either because it flatters to have no fear of being wrong, or because the whole affair means nothing to you, and the
alternative is always offensive to the one who feels loved.
A playful jealousy of words and attitudes, and pretending, is on the other hand a kind homage.
A sickly jealousy is an insult, it destroys beauty, devours the heart and can steer the dismayed love to havoc.
If you think you have well-founded reasons to be jealous, avoid in any case to barricade yourself stoically behind your dignity and mortified true
love.
If you're certain about your misfortune, no lamentation or furtive tears. Don't be humbled, weak and contemptible, but violent, as violent as your
love, he should feel he's paying the highest price.
Do not oppose him with a hardened face and the icy words of a wrath queen that would be impractical and ridiculous. Show him a heart full of love and
be pen about your pain, this is good enough to move rocks.
Passion has its torrents, and it may seem presumptious to try and steer its course, but think of it: the man who resists a desperate appeal and
insists to couse suffering, isn't worth being loved. Love must cease to exist there, where jealousy begins to justify itself and should be turned off
when it is turned off.
If you're not sure, then don't make gloomy allusions, especially in front of others, no black mood nor ambiguous expressions (so you don't seem duped)
because you'll give him the irresistible temptation to justify your suspicions as soon as possible.
And then, counter-attack if you want, through dummy reprisals: like him, awaken the sense of jealousy. Change your hair-cut, buy a new hat (that will
brighten you), visit the tailor, go out with friends, come back late, renew yourself, be more distant and more seductive, leave no stone unturned...
and you'll end up turning the heart of the presumed fickle man.
Finally: don't be a coward, have the courage to go through a stage, even if you feel you're going to lose ground, and even if you've run out of
argument or lies. Bad players knock over all the pieces when they're faced with a losing game, so they are spared the defeat.
To close an earnest debate “to have peace” by ungraceful words that put you in the victim spot: “Yes, I know, you are right, it's me who has all the
faults”, is dangerous. That's leaving the door open to an even more destructive enemy than the shouts and the bluntness: Silence.
There certainly is a transparent silence where the souls touch each other, but this is another silence, opaque and heavy, where two souls face and
challence each other. When that Silence has installed itself at the fire, it's Love that's left him that place.
The usual excuse of those who hurt others, is that they want their property. – Vauvenarges.
The Rainbow:
Know how to gently go back to the start...
He's dying of envy as well, but doesn't know how to go about it without compromising his sacred masculine dignity. Your weak smile begs for peace,
like a rainbow wenturing the sky through a storm.
And still, two important advices:
At the tender part of your reconciliation, don't murmur: “And still, dear, you were the one who was wrong...” Be wrong, be wrong a thousand times, my
dear, but don't damage your happiness. That is the one mistake you'll never be right about.
Don't tell others about the secrets of your intimity, neither the delicacies nor the storms. Show the world that you're the most mysteriously happy
couple in the world. And let each other rage, to himself, on jealousy and curiosity.
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BBP
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Before I post the Blue Land chapter, here are some of the images from the book...
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BBP
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And here it is...
LITTLE VOYAGE TO CYTHERA
Cythera is, as we all know, the Isle of Venus and the homeland of Loves. A hypocritical literary convention tells us that we should leave our heroes
atthe foot of the pier, wishing them good luck.
As our plans are pure and straightforward, we don't hesitate to accompany you with our frivolous advices on one of the exquisite and earnest
adventures where one can taste the most intimate happiness.
Invitation To The Voyage
Is the invitation exchanged between you two, in an invisible message where each shows the desire and the consent of the other? Then this does not
apply to you.
But often, the hearts of man and woman don't beat at the same rhythm, although they love each other much. They'd love the madness, but not at the same
time.
Please, Madam, move away...
You were in a sportive mood and strong on beauty tonight. You had prepared a lovely dinner. A pleasant fire lit up the bedroom. He came home, the
forehead bearing worry and arms filled with papers. Resign yourself. Let him crunch his numbers in peace. Don't blindfold him by holding his hand. (he
knows well enough it's you already). Don't ruffle his hair. Don't steal his red pencil. Refrain from the absurd need to disturb him, until he has time
for you.
Lost evening...
You're not uncompromising.
This evening you were in a dreamy mood, and a little tired. He came home, so overflowing with enthusiasm as even he can't remember himself. You throw
a confident gesture in his arms. He smiles at you. But already you can read something else in his changed eyes. He answered your chaste fire of
tenderness with a much less chaste fire of desire.
Don't pull back. Accept your differences like sane reality. With you, the heart speaks, but the men are all entangled in their bodies when they want
to express their tenderness.
And this body always speaks in terms that demand.
There certainly are things about which you need to be unanimous. But if you don't have earnest reasons to refuse him...
Be charitable, don't play Distant Princess, the great unrecognized soul. He must find you to be very accessible. It's not the right time anymore to
let out a dying moan, nor to get out virtuously, grab the workbasket and start repairing socks. There's a time for everything.
Love is impatient, don't let it suffer. Loved women are almost always those who love loving. Don't take your time to prepare for the journey. By the
tie you're finally ready, your husband will have left for another destination: dreamland.
Simple devices... lipstick, mascara and a tumbling hairstyle bristling with pins and combs, are prescribed. More so buns and braids.
When your hair is free and untangled, your skin clean and perfumed, your breath pure like the smell of roses. Remove your angular bracelets from your
wrists. But keep your necklace on...
Travel and stay at Cythera
For the delicious little voyage to the blue land, you ideally need to leave and arrive at the same time.
Ignore those people who darken, consistently pressed towards their goal, blind and deaf, never caring about their companions or the divine joys of
playing truant, the fruits of the marauding, the flowers on the slopes, the shadows and their source; let alone the invasive intoxication of a
different pleasure.
Women believe that everything they dare is innocent.
And indeed everything is innocent, in the heat of a mutual passion where you're no longer yourself, but more than yourself, laying an unrecognizable
extatic mask on your face, so moving in the eyes of someone who loves you.
But you, Madam, to whom Heaven has given a “rich nature”, avoid shameless requirements and scorching screams that force !!!!!!
He won't forgive you this plundering.
When they are provided, that's when they refuse that men appreciate the modesty of women.
Withhold your love here and there so that your husband will have something to veil and unveil. Never anticipate. Because a graceful slowness will
awaken an even more acute desire. It guarantees a wealth of pleasures that have no idea of the normal gestures of animalistic brutality.
You, Madam, who doesn't feel the charms of the voyage and who secretly laments that the Happy Island will always be a Promised Land beyond reach to
you, reassure yourself. You're not abnormal. Specialized doctors have calculated that about two thirds of women are, like you, banned. They
established that it is due to some kind of (sometimes hereditary) training, and that the price is often a nervous or moral imbalance, that a
restricted number of women is allowed to taste the violent pleasure, which nature seems to have reserved for men.
So it;s quite possible that Cythera is lost for you. Don't lock yourself in a sulky passivity. Revelation doesn't choose its hour.
As evidence: the ravishing story as told by Colette, From Ingenue to Libertine, twice an adulterer – – always deceived – who one eveing, discovers
love in the arms of her husband.
Simulating the fervor is often enough to stimulate it.
It is not done to put up a grotesque comedy that fools nobody, but it's good to fool yourself, to take yourself into the game. So simulate, also for
your husband who will otherwise feel lonely in his joy and pleasure. But also, to be happy in love, you need a lot of love.
Forget yourself. So your mind nor your body stays tense, looking for the desired transport. Absorb yourself completely in the happiness of the one you
love.That your eyes, your lips, your words, your gestures, caresses, express to him what your heart is overflowing with.
You should be proud that he gives you this much joy.
Gratitude inspires him to subtle and patient meticulousness, and the awakening of Sleeping Beauty will be his reward – because nothing is really
impossible in love.
The departure, like the arrival, depends on your compagnon. He is the pilot. Well, there may be minor annoyances that compromise the agreement on
travels: we want to talk about breakdown.
Surprisingly, they're usually caused by too much love. At the moment of achieving a happiness for which they've longed for too long, the heart and
senses of a passionate man can brusquely become stupefied and struck with impotence. Be moved by this transient failure, and more: of the most
triumphant presence: the spirit.
But, in general, all men say it's the clumsiness of the fairer sex that is to blame for breakdown in sight of the island Cythera. Believe that or
not... but don't laugh, you wretch! They'd never forgive you.
And shake off your languid laziness. Grant the unfortunate in this painful ordeal your unreserved moral and material assistance.
On the way back:
He is curled up near you, broken with emotion, thunderstruck. When he comes back to his senses, he won't always be very tender. His vague and
dispersed consciousness of things doesn't allow him to interrogate you about your state of mind. When he opens his mouth, if it's not to embarrass
you, it'll be to mention the first absurdity that pops into his head. Be indulging: you're the one he got his drunkenness from.
Does he sleep? Be silent. Close your eyes. Don't move. Let you both cool down in the destruction of bliss.
If you come to be very happy, you'll feel a vertiginous fatigue, and that's easy on you. Don't fall asleep ensnarled like an octopus. A burden,
however charming, will always be a burden.
If you haven't been very happy, perhaps your nervous senses are telling you that a new hug will sooth them. Don't impute the slowness of your natural
reluctance on masculine selfishness.
And above all, don't be one of those verocious women who , with a pernicious contempt for the laws of nature, attempt with reproaches, challenges and
all other unfair tricks, to relight a fire which they didn't appreciate at the time.
Perhaps you are simply deceived by this adventure of the flesh. So your spirit is deliciously lucid and your heart more avid then ever for
tenderness.
You experience a pathetic need to be reassured, to listen to protests and sermons, to be sure that these transportations, that you have such a small
part in, aren't quintessential for love to him anymore.
Alas, he's asleep... or he wants to be able to sleep in peace.
Don't wake him up. Don't harass him with questions or unwelcome caresses. This beneficial torpor might seem like an offense to you. And still, he has
nothing left to say to you.
He sleeps... happy to have been able to express his love to you, and, in his view, of the best thing there is in the world.
The Infallible Recipy:
The one infallible recipe for enduring happiness, is the child. The child of love. The wanted child, and of whom each hopes to find back that what he
adores in the other.
In their child, man and woman discover the mysterious face of their crazy love of lovers, and finally understand their reason to live and to
persist.
Mythology represents Eros, the little victorious god, as a pink, chubby baby.
Eloquent symbol poetry: the child is Love incarnate.
One should like Love, there isn't anything else to love.- M. Desbordes.Valmore
Was it good for you?
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CHARMS
Let's stay here with the magic qualities of charm, the sorcery of which the fairy tales tell the greatest things. It's always been Prince Charming one
tries to charm. Casters of spells, witches in love, women...
And about reckless witches who often ignore the secrets of their power, confound their incantations and forget the names of the appropriate potions to
enchant their chosen one.
There are three of them: Seduction, Youth and Womanhood, that, in careful doses, are never insufficient on the heart of men and are the most
persuasive charms of women.
SEDUCTION
By design we avoid to talk about “beauty” and “sex-appeal”. The only beauty often leaves men cold, sex-appeal evokes a heat that tires earily.
Seduction, on the other hand, holds them in a warm and durable grip.
All the loved ladies, all the beauties...
Elsewhere, the living beauty doesn't live up to classic statue canon, or to a fashion print figure, but a variable and personal notion. Look at the
old, cambered mannequin, relegated to the attic, on which your grandmother draped her avantageous corsages. Does it make you laugh? Would you wiggle
to imitate her? Yet, her figure was the ambition of an era.
Do you see that beautiful woman passing? Do you envy her twig-like slendernes? In your ears, scorning your brother, the courtesy-less treat of the
hops perch.
Thus you learn that there are no beauties that cannot be disdained.There isn't anyone who's ugly anymore... there are only unhappy people who believe
that there are.
Please, don't get dispaired because some magazine, inspired by American standards, pedantically offers a complete picture of ideal measurements, and
decides to denounce your appearance just by size and weight.
Men don't let themselves be guided by such rigorous arrests and, contrary to the arbitrary fantasies of fashion, continue sanely to enjoy that what
nature gives them: blooming curves as well as boy-like cool, robust “bait” as well as transparent fragility.
Perhaps you're not a beauty, but whatever your proportions and your “type” may be, you can be beautiful.
And more, there are certain seductions every woman possesses, if she wants. Consider to make them more accurate with you...
There are beautiful things that have more shine whe they have imperfections when they are achieved. – La Rochefoucauld
The Grace Of Your Walk
By this sign one could recognize goddesses in the fabulous age of the Olympus.
A beautiful walk depends on where your head is as much as on where your feet are. One should have the nexk straight on the shoulders (not leaned
forward) and the head well-balanced on the neck, that is to say to avoid to have the nose in the air and exaggerated stiffness of the neck that
translates to double chins.
Exotic girls, who return from the fountain with the burden of a vase of water on their head, are beautiful by their gait alone. Practice it with all
the books and phone books in the house.
One also needs good shoes. The determination of your pace is much more important than the small size of your foot. Don't be ashamed of your size. If
your shoes are too tight, your traits convulse, your ankles will get congested, your mood will become infernal and you will pine for the moment when,
at the height of impropriety, you can kick them off secretly under the table.
Let's not speak of your walk, which, in this case, is a sad spectacle.
The cop's march and the trot of a mechanical doll are equally ridiculous. Keep the ankles straight and the shoulders supple. Don't, or barely, swing
your hips upwards or laterally: you would waddle more comically than provoking. Pay attention to the feet down there. Straighten the leg. Chest
straight... There,that's perfect, you can go for your walk.
Agility
The agility of your waist and your limbs will ease your attitude and your movements, and is, in the eyes of men, more attractive than the beauty of
your figure.
She whose oiled joints bend gracefully and play in perfect independance of each other like cats, is more of a woman. That's why, if you have neither
the courage nor the desire to lose several pounds of grease by an exhausting physical programme, at least do some agility exercises regularly.
Nothing is as good as getting help from a tcoach every week. Learn from their wise advices.
Dance as well. This is not the advice of the light-hearted grasshopper, but a recipe from the foreseeing ant: you'll provide a good mood and beauty.
You can't be homely if you dance well. And one can learn dancing.
Natural Attractions:
Perhaps you're not a beauty, you tell us again, but there is your profile, the quality of your hair, the nuance of your complexion, to make you
beautiful. Certain attractions, the so-called “natural” ones, are more captivating than the classic beauty. There's nothing more to it than making
them more attractive, by making them as natural as possible.
Our intention is not to give you technical advice or well-tried recipes. Others tacke that, and tackle it well too. What we want is to orientate your
complicated care towards seduction, to subordinate that to the “art of being loved”, in one word: to mke you abdicate your feminine point of view, and
exchange it for that of a man.
We'll train this through conclusions that sometimes don't get attended to.
Crazy Hair and Wild Hair
Men love hair. They cut theirs very short and some of the less favoured only carry it on their chest... So, the feminine hair attracts them, and,
instinctively, they hurry to get from behind you, to see if the face fulfills the sumpious promises of the neck.
If they hate crazy wicks or graceless buns, then they abhor complicated constructions, the clever arrangements one cannot get close to without hearing
the words “Watch out! You're cutting my hair!”
They love fuzzy and supple hair where they can run their fingers through or lose kisses in.Where they can also bury their face and breathe pleasant
natural smells.
So take more care to have beautiful hair than a beautiful hairdo. Less pins, less perms and curlers, and more shampoo and rubbing. Less wish combs and
more brushes.
O fleecy hair, falling in curls to the shoulders!
O black locks! O perfume laden with nonchalance!
-Baudelaire
Taste and Colours
Men love bright colours, shaded eyes, red lips. They often look at ladies with make-up, but, naturally, don't appreciate it if their own wife abuses
the rouge. And more, they deplore it if every night “In four tissues, soiled beauty”, she “sends her roses and lilies to the bleacher”. They rub the
bits of pancake foundation from their vest and are, rightly, very sobered when your paradisical kiss smears an indelible lipstick stain on their
skin.
So be younger, prettier in an unkept and naked face, rather than pasked for the day in the artifices of modern coquetry.
Take care of your health, rest often , avoid veils, avoid drinking alcohol, avoid above all to “live on the edge”. Don't spend as much time with your
creams, lotions and powders, as with the punctuality of your “small functions” (find better translation Bon), the length of your sleep, the egality
of your character and the equilibrum of your temperament...
But men approve women, without reluctance, in their attentive care that they give to their teeth, their skin and their hands.
Show Your Teeth
The integrity and whiteness of your teeth that your infatigable little toothbrush gives you, along with a bi-annual trip to the dentist, are an almost
irresistible method of seduction. Healthy jaws seem to sink your teeth into life and make a flourishing smile like a dazzling temptation.
Angelic Skin
Nothing prolongs the power of seduction, invites more to caress, a caress more caressing than caressing, than a satin skin, fine and slippery under
the fingertips. Who never sings convincingly of the benefits of water, beautiful running water that washes and vivifies the female skin, that we think
is naturally soft and fragrant.
It's certainly fragrant, but only when it's clean. No man will challenge that he is an adversary of Henry IV, lover of hints of garlic and fish. Wash,
brush, sand down, oil, epilate, put in some effort: you'll always be lovable and loved.
Velvet Paw
Otherwise nown as “white paw”, because alas, the creamy and milky prelate hand is not an appendage of every woman. But at least have a velvet paw, a
little unsettling miracle of softness, with tidy and cut claws like a domesticated cat.
Worker, the feminine hand should hide your energy. A dear hardened and furrowed palm softens the heart, gets respect, but does not invite to love.
Light and untied, the hand traces to the sound of words, the arabesque of the gesture. A sober arabesque twirling around a supple wrist should never
drag the elbow or shoulder. Teach your hands to keep still when they are unoccupied. Nervousness is one of the greatest enemies of charm. But it's
contagious and radiates a painful and tense atmosphere.
A beautiful calmness on the other hand, serves beauty and conveys the fascination for pure and unfathomable lakes.
Your hand so soft, as they ask from you... and they won't let you ask again.
Mystery and Discretion
Be discrete about taking care of your appearance. It is where you shine, beautified by grace of movement: Suzanne in the bath makes men delirious: not
just old men, but also generations of painters, and while the water nymphs comb their hair, the marines let their ship run to ground.
Men find some acts of feminine coquetry charming, provided they're executed with reserved grace. They'll tolerate watching you powder your nose,
perfume your ear or smoothening your eyebrows with your finger, but they'll be horrified to watch you with your pout extended, gazing in the mirror,
putting on lipstick, or watching you with your hand down your cleavage, searching for a stray epaulette, or watching you flutter up and down, with the
dress in hand, in a tragic effort to pull your gurdle tighter. Furthermore, do not show your face when your cheeks are brushed with fat cream and
fresh cucumber, or with hair in curlers. Take care that the sweet-odoured products you use, don't nauseate. Finally, when you've been in a hurry,
never let your hairdo become a weapon arsenal on your pillow.
The Dangerous Science of Adornment
Is adornment dangerous? Yes, doubtlessly for the others, because it wastes unexpected seductions, and if you change disguise ten times, you'll create
ten different “souls”, each different but equally desirable. It's why many women drea of beng a model in a fashion house, oh that one day.
It's also dangerousfor yourself. The extravagances of the season impose a slavery on women, a blind snobbery, that distorts the view they have of
their own personality, that makes them prefer a fashionable dress over a flattering dress.
Men are mostly impervious to the subtle currents in fashion, and you tell them this with a categorical mockery when they dare to make a timid
suggestion: “Oh dearest, I tell you, you really don't know anything about it...”
All-right. Save a few,gifted by an extremely refined sense of elegance, they really know nothing about fashion. But be sure that they recognise beauty
in women. And all things considered it's not useless to be inspired a little more with their views on the matter. What they want in a dress is that it
“goes well with you”. They don't care about the cuts, rolls, the craftsmanship of the tailor. It's you they cherish and it's the harmony of your
feminine silhouette that they want to see, exalted and poetized under the fabric. The dress that you made in an inspired moment of a piece of curtain,
will give you more compliments than a clever outfit with a haute couture stamp.
Note that men instinctively hate everything that constricts the body and limbs, all the little tricks, the ribs, the bones, the fastening. Also, in
strict and closed winter dresses, they prefer the light flight of summer dresses, with their transparency under sunlight revealing your true
figure.
Above all, take care to construct your figure, rather than following every little fashion detail. Know how to modify your garments so that they suit
your digure: get rid of that bodice, cut out that neck, make those pockets smaller, lengthen that skirt, manage the width, in one word: model your
dress so that your proportions remain happy. For that, you'll have to know and accept, without any illusions, your given “sizes”, and also have the
courage to renounce beautiful variations that are, alas, for another woman, but would look ridiculous on you. Brave the bandwagon and impose your own
taste: be less fashion and more truly elegant.
Is the dress a success? Make no mistake. It's not the one that your friend details, but the one of which your husband is dying to remove it from you –
passionately.
Finally, master the delicate art of the seasonal colours. Ask yourself before going out what is the right garment for the season, the time and the
occasion. Harmonize your accessories: bag, gloves, shoes. Don't combine high heels with long trousers, don't go to an elegant tea party in a trench
coat, not to the flower market in a silver fox.
Contemplate the way in which you change yourself when you're at the swimming pool. Everybody knows that nudism cools the desire, and the decency that
invented clothing knew, the hypocrite, about sin than the naïve inmodesty of natives. Finally, if you're lucky enough to possess beautiful jewels, be
dignified by your discretion and class. So that their shine doesn't eclipse you. Don't make them shine, like the good Lord makes the stars shine when
night has fallen. Whether or not you're sure about yourself, of your psychic powers, of your taste, never let an opportunity slip to educate yourself
in the difficult art of pleasing. Carefully collect the smallest remarks, even the smallest criticisms, that other women who you want to look like,
make. Think on whether or not their judgments are fair and apply this sincerely onto yourself. Listen to the advice your friends give you: they may
declare your taste, but they mustn't influence it. Jealousy, that's inherent to women, whether unconscious or calculated, may cause them to advice the
opposite of what suits you. “I'm delighted,” says a lucid young woman, “that Nicole thinks I look bad. I must be quite a beauty!”
The clothes of a woman, with all their refinements, are a great art in their own way. – Ernest Renan
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Some more pictures... Note the lovely old-style telephone in the chatting-girl-on-sofa picture!
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THE RANGE OF FRIVOLITY
What Amuses Men: Or can make them furious depending on the mood of the day and the randomness of your taste: it's the hat. Be conciling: one in every
two hats should be one that will not make your husband see red. As revenge, forbid him formally to make the children laugh by putting your headwear on
his skull.
Know that men love two things in women's hats: a grain of a little zany imagination (as long as it's flattering) that give you an unfamiliar face for
several hours, and the delectable pleasure of being able to take it off, with a proprietary gesture...
What Hypnotizes Them
You should know this, it's stockings. The leg in stockings. Have but one hat, but one bag, but always have impeccable stockings. The slightest fold is
a flaw, the slightest deviation of fashion a felony, that dishonours the most charming calf irreversably.
What Makes Them Poets
.. if you can express it that way, it's lingerie. “Frou-Frou, Frou-Frou...” our fathers sang while curling their gallant moustaches upwards.Their sons
haven't changed much. A bit of crêpe, a fringe of lace and they've already left in ecstacy. They don't have time to slow themselves down to admire the
delicacy of hand-made embroidery, refined stitching and applications. What moves them is the clinging beauty or looseness of dress, its nuances of
petals and the softness of Parisian fabric.
What Makes Them Complete
If your natural hunting dog odour isn't rotten, it's perfume. “Your” perfume, which lingers everywhere you've been, recreates your presence
obsessively and closely. Doubly yours because you've chosen it after many tries in accordance with the articular charm of your personality, and
because when vaporised lightly on the skin, it penetrates the feminine luke-warm effluvia and creates a lively and captivating perfume of which the
magic or aphrodisical magic remains your inviolable secret.
The most honest woman doesn't offer the slightest resistance to the temptation of looking seductive and, without giving hope, she's not sorry to
leave a regret. -Madame de Girardin
YOUTH
Youth is the major charm of the woman. Without her, the seduction is without catch, womanhood without shine.
We hurry to say, as paradoxal as it may seem: true youth is ageless.
There are young, long, chlorotic girls of whom the look alone makes one yawn, and alert old ladies who, in spite of their grey hairs, retain an eger
courtship.
Remaining young, that doesn't mean “to cling desperately to the past like an impenitent coquette, pitiful monkeys who, in spite of their trickery and
their grimaces, can't even fool themselves. No. To stay young, one should accept changes and, strangely, the Art Of Staying Young and the Art Of
Ageing could both serve as the same reflections and the same advice.
Each woman has three ages: the age on her birth certificate, the age she seems and the age she acknowledges. It's enough for the last two to
correspond: the first one doesn't matter much.
Don't stare transfixed with horror into the mirror when you discover a bit of grey hair, or a wrinkle at the corner of your lips. Those details aren't
important. Take care of it and don't think of it anymore. Just your air of consternation and worry ages you.The source of youth lies deeper: it is in
the light of your eyes and the bounding of your vitality.It shows itself by a magnificent, contagious lust for life, that looks to the person you
conquered like that of a laughing child eating a beautiful piece of fruit.
Eve was right. Why did the Lord punish Eve's sin so heavily? To summarize, she only succumbed to her youth. She was hungry (hungry for that piece of
fruit), she was greedy, vain, curious, insatiable and reckless: she was young. Lifting her arms towards the heavy branches, heavy with blackberries
and catastrophic delicacies, she doubtlessly dared it to escape the ennuy of a Paradise that's too perfect.
Colette wrote: “Boredom is such a depravity. What moral can keep boredom away?”
What moral? What youth, too.
To stay young, you must fight ennui, monotony, sadness. You must want it.
No-one would disagreee that these jumps of vitality can only be created by excellent health and an impeccable glandular equilibrum. Nor can anyone
disagree to the influence it has on your personality, of such and such moral attitude, adopted by will power and that, as you get used to it, becomes
a second nature.
The source of youth is within you. It is up to your energy to find it and make it gush out, so the nurturing waves revive you.
Youth is enthusiastic. Women who have the gift of enthusiasm, are blessed by the gods and are sheltered from age. Their ever awake spirit, ready to
amaze, moved by admiration and wild in criticism, keeps the freshness of its impressions. It's never too late for these privileges, no task is too
difficult. They can renew their interests, develop their experience, guard the extraordinary power of excitement, and carry this “victorious
attitude”, as an American novelist put it, through all circumstances in your life.
Youth is free. It's free of all habits and impatient with force. Routine is one of its worst enemies. Those who are corseted in the rigid bodice of
immovable regular rites and tyranical manias, are women who are done for. Never should one fail in order and discipline regarding household economics,
but the door should always be open to novelty, to the unexpected. It's important never to get stuck in a situation of complete rest, to never be
pleased with rut. Neither the heart nor the spirit should be retreated.
Youth is also free of convention. Contemptuous of received prejudices, it never cares about the opinion of others, except for shocking or fighting
it.
The thoughtful youth of woman is not as revolutionary. She can manage the social susceptibilities up to the extreme without harming the integrity of
character, nor the independance of her life. But she frees herself of the “what do they say about me” obsession, the terror of being observed and
judged. If you ask yourself with fear what the men think of you, remember they ask themselves what you think of them, with no less fear.
So, the equilibrum is re-established. The views of the world aren't deflected on you. Get rid of every bit of nerves: you can be yourself, free,
charming and serene.
Finally:
Youth is happy because it has confidence in life. This natural gaiety doesn't mean that you should be numb to misery or armed against all despair. On
the contrary. A young being can suffer extremely. But the secret to his health is it knows how to react: like the heliothrope, it turns to the sun, to
tomorrow, to hope.
A woman who wants to stay young, must defend the fatalism, this kind of moral sadism that is inevitable, destined to pain, bad luck and failure.
Don't be one of those who need to prove incessantly the need to torment themselves for something or other. Black thoughts never helped anyone. They
are little villainous geniuses with malicious power: you should chase them away at all cost. Create a luminous and light soul, and be good company for
yourself: you'll also be it for the one you love.
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BBP
Super Administrator
Posts: 8053
Registered: 3-10-2005
Location: Eindhoven, Netherlands
Member Is Offline
Mood: Cheerful yet relaxed
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WOMANHOOD
Seducton is, in all its degrees a wanted and calculated charm. It's a charm you can't always control, because it is, or should be, part of your
nature. But sometimes nature makes a mistake, it's forced and shoved by the actual existence, and then femininity is in danger. Fear that too much
freedom and too much equality with men doesn't work out: up to the point of too much fraternity – and less love.
Keep and nurture the femininity of your body, your spirit, your soul. Be a woman in even your slightest gestures and your slightest words: because men
start to criticize their modern companions when they become too similar to themselves.
The worst type of female is the grouchy one, the pedantic one comes after that. – Casanova
Your Most Intimite Enemy
It's not that easy to stay a woman, even on the physiological plan. Your most intimate enemy is the man. That's new, you think. We want to talk about
the man here because simply, if a mysterious coincidence didn't happen in the maternal bosom, that decided that you really are a woman. Medics confirm
that it happens, that there's something left of this possibility in each woman, and the first care of the Daughters of Eve is to not let this evolve
to the masculine type they carry, for they latently carry the germs that are always ready to dominate the weakness and grace of their own nature.You
may say: look at the beautiful mother-cops, dry old girls who, with their shrill voices and their moustache-like kiss scare everybody. They're
evolved, those “masculinated”... Fear looking like them someday. But you're not without defense.
Your Allies
Love is your best ally. Love is beautiful and makeswomen beautiful and more feminine. The more seductive you are, the more chance you have on being
loved, the more yyou are loved and the more your femininity blossoms radiantly and desirably. And that makes one of the healthiest vicious circles.
The woman takes part in love, and the doctors say the love of the man dispenses a variety of beautifying hormones in her body. Maternity magnifies it,
completes it and places it in a triumphant womanhood.
Exterior Enemies
Conditions of modern life place you more and more at university, in business and factories as rivals of men. Women “work”, women make war, women drink
and smoke like men. You have the difficult task of reconciling all of this: the current requirements of social evolution and the eternal requirements
of human nature. Though it may seem outdated to hundreds, the “home” with the soft glow of the lamp, and the “house” where your presence shows off a
thousand charming details, have always made and continue to make the ideal climate for womanhood.
Guard yourself at least from excessive sports that tan, wrinkle and age the faces of young champions prematurely. All sport should stay a game for
you, it should never be practiced in competition. Leave the exhausting pursuit of records to your companions. Otherwise, the warning signal that
you're given is the fact that the specific hormone of the muscles is a masculine hormone.
Bluestocking or Blue Flower?
We must face the fact with resignation and we usually have to choose: Men never appreciated learned women. If you have diplomas, if you are an
“intellectual”, if your spirit is curious and cultivated, it will take infinite grace and modesty to excuse yourself from these suspicious qualities.
Men would rather raise a shrine for you than treat you as equals.
So be feminine. Don't be a feminist. So that your intelligence develops your finesse and your intuition. Don't put your ambition to knowing
everything, but to understanding everything; not to discuss everything, but to listen to all: your name as spirited woman will soon be established.
If you still want to let your dear opinion triumph, be so kind to pretend your idea was posed by the speaker earlier: “Dear friend, you just said
something right that struck me...” The “dear friend” will certainly not remember these words, but he'll be enchanted by your candid flattery. And if
he has to recognize that you are right, make him forget it by a very small knowing smile.
Dame Of The Heart
The heart is an excellent feminine asset. One often envies you for being a woman of the head , but one will always admire you for being a woman of the
heart. On the condition, however, that you're not a victim at the same time. Tenderness and softness are your domain, your closed flower garden where
you ache to welcome everyone you love. But be on your toes, or your imprudent generosity leaves it to the indifferent to plunder. Know how to close
your doors. If you want to be happy, be good without being weak, be soft without being a slave. Defend yourself from becoming prey, let your slightly
haughty consciousness of your female privileges keep your sensibility from being abused, from exposing your natural thirst to giving.
Peccadilloes
On the other hand there are a lot of faults that are often attributed easily – too easily – to women: curiosity, indiscretion, gossip, jealousy, being
contrary, etc aren't just faults from a moral point of view. They are crimes of hurt feminity that change the serene harmoy of the face: the forehead
stumbles, the eyebrows get knotted, the look loses its transparency and magnetism, the mouth hardens, forgetting about the innocent pleasures of the
world. However there are some peccadilloes that the woman could bring to a point of such grace and perfection that she made it into a virtue.
So, the “True Woman” is a gourmande. Her husband likes that and congratulates himself seeing her in the kitchen, her white hands in cake dough or
tasting the soup with an air of suspicion. The “True Woman” can sometimes create an atmosphere of carefree idleness around her that moves the feverish
masculine traces far away. Because she works like an ant, she can reserve these leisure hours for herself and others. The “True Woman”, finally, loves
love and love is good for her...
Weapons of Femininity
Femininity is the weapon of her fragile nature. As soon as she renounces this to imitate the masculine force, she surrenders her prerogatives, and her
efforts are doomed to ridicule and failure. She's not, however, destitute. The human looks can be enough to tame the faults. The feminine look can be
enough to overpower hearts.Your radiation primarily comes out through the eyes. Look at the world without shyness, with a straight and confident view.
But know how to play with your eyelids, how you can let the fringes of your eyelashes cast a flattering shadow. Know how to seduce with the eyes, and
how to change your physionomy without moving your head or your your face. More powerful and more certain is the capturing with the voice. If yours is
naturally melodious, pretend not to know. Don't modulate. Never force your talent. Use it to make you listen, never to listen to yourself. Finally,
know how to vary your tone, since nothing is more soporific than a monotonous speaker. Know that Sheherazade enchanted the boredom of her master for
1001 nights...
But don't give in to the desire of shining, of making people laugh or seeming emancipated while letting yourself tell grievous stories. Neither slang
nor equivocal proposals belong on a woman's lips.Know how to laugh with others without prudishness, but without glare, without light-hearted anecdotes
that you've heard, even if you've had them on your chest for ten years, even if you don't understand them...
Anyway, if you prefer to be silent, know the language of smiling. Smile with your eyes, with your lips, but above all with your heart. Nothing is more
disagreeable than a grin of affectuated politeness or of regular banality.
The smile will help you in embarrassing situations. It's an indispensable element of tact that creates an easy-going, natural and optimistic
atmosphere around you. Tact is one of the most effective moral weapons of femininity. It is the immediate intuitive perception of what to do or what
to say, and when. It can't exist without the antennas of an imaginative and vibrant sensibility, which leads to even more mysterious inspirations.
The secret of tact is to put yourself in the place of others, to discover what they expect from you, the loving word, the simple compliment, and if
possible, the opportune question that alluminates the little flame of their life, of their interest, gratitude, an omen of amity.
Affable, tender or malicious, the smile invites those who approach, to feel happy and to think you are charming. If these two goals are achieved, you
are a merit to the name of Woman.
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aquagoat
King Kong Status
Posts: 2170
Registered: 15-3-2006
Location: France
Member Is Offline
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I'm gonna take time this week-end to read that, thanks for posting BB.
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BBP
Super Administrator
Posts: 8053
Registered: 3-10-2005
Location: Eindhoven, Netherlands
Member Is Offline
Mood: Cheerful yet relaxed
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Thanks, appreciate it!
Please ignore any spelling errors: these were caused by trying to type with a book on your hands, and I'll get rid of those in my definite version of
the text (it's just that right now I really don't want to look at it.). If there's any grammatical error, such as a Dutch proverb or idiom literally
translated to English, or if it's just plain illegible. I tried to copy the style used in the book, 1948 French will be different from present-day
French, I assume, but that doesn't mean it's always clear.
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