![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Lola Montez - Hints to Gentlemen 1
Sep. 5th, 2006 10:20 am1. Set it down, then, that the women prefer triflers to men of sense, and when you wish to make one of the sex tremendously in love with you, you will of course make yourself as big a fool as possible, in order to ensure the most speedy and triumphant success. You will do this not only because women prefer such characters, but you will also consider that so little do the most sensible and fascinating women know of their own power, that, Nero-like, they will only stop to catch flies and gnats.
Your hope of complete success then, lies in your ability to be a coxcomb, who has no earthly recommendation but his face, his coat, and his impudence. To acquire pleasing and fascinating manners you will do well to spend about half of your time between the curling- irons and the looking-glass, so as to become the paragon described by Mr. Tennyson.
"Oiled and curled like an Assyrian bull,
Smelling of musk and insolence."
2. You will make an immense hit with the ladies by pretending to be no admirer of any particular woman, but a professed adorer and slave of the whole sex; a thing which you can easily show by staring insultingly at every pretty woman you meet. This will also be following the analogy of nature, as we know that fleas and other disgusting insects molest those who have the tenderest skins and fairest complexions, just as the human flesh-flies haunt the fairer part of creation. Then, as you are not a particular, but only a general lover, the ladies will regard it as a safe business to receive the fractional part of your heart which might belong to them, just as a popular notion prevails that homeopathic doses of medicine are harmless, to say the least.
3. You will do well to boast that you have no higher ambition in life than merely to render yourself agreeable to the ladies. This will at once impress them with profound respect for the magnitude of your ambition, and the majesty of your genius. Every woman will be crazy to marry a man of such splendid prospects; and the whole sex will be most happy to avail themselves of the services of so aimable and useful a gentleman. But let me caution you not to give the slightest heed to those cast-iron, sneering kind of men who out of jealousy, will say that you were framed by nature to be a woman's fool, and who will further seek to annoy you by saying that the ladies change their lackey-lovers as often as they do their bonnets, because they soon get tired of them.
4. If you can affect effeminacy and a lisping softness in your speech it will go a great way towards winning the confidence and esteem of a sensible and lovely woman. Let your conversation never rise out of the level of balls, parties, fashions and the opera. The opera will be not only a pleasing but an appropriate theme for you, as it will associate you, in the lady's mind, with the charming subject of music, reminding her that quavers and unmeaning words are always softer than its more manly parts.
5. By all means wear jewelry; if you have it not of your own, borrow it, or get it some other way, for you must be sore that you go not into the presence of any woman, whose good opinion is worth having, without being loaded with jewelry. An immense breast-pin, either of diamonds or paste, with two rings on each hand and a heavy fob chain, twelve inches long will be sufficient to prove that you are a man of substantial good sense, and that you are the possessor of a heart which is worthy of the confidence and admiration of any woman.
Your hope of complete success then, lies in your ability to be a coxcomb, who has no earthly recommendation but his face, his coat, and his impudence. To acquire pleasing and fascinating manners you will do well to spend about half of your time between the curling- irons and the looking-glass, so as to become the paragon described by Mr. Tennyson.
"Oiled and curled like an Assyrian bull,
Smelling of musk and insolence."
2. You will make an immense hit with the ladies by pretending to be no admirer of any particular woman, but a professed adorer and slave of the whole sex; a thing which you can easily show by staring insultingly at every pretty woman you meet. This will also be following the analogy of nature, as we know that fleas and other disgusting insects molest those who have the tenderest skins and fairest complexions, just as the human flesh-flies haunt the fairer part of creation. Then, as you are not a particular, but only a general lover, the ladies will regard it as a safe business to receive the fractional part of your heart which might belong to them, just as a popular notion prevails that homeopathic doses of medicine are harmless, to say the least.
3. You will do well to boast that you have no higher ambition in life than merely to render yourself agreeable to the ladies. This will at once impress them with profound respect for the magnitude of your ambition, and the majesty of your genius. Every woman will be crazy to marry a man of such splendid prospects; and the whole sex will be most happy to avail themselves of the services of so aimable and useful a gentleman. But let me caution you not to give the slightest heed to those cast-iron, sneering kind of men who out of jealousy, will say that you were framed by nature to be a woman's fool, and who will further seek to annoy you by saying that the ladies change their lackey-lovers as often as they do their bonnets, because they soon get tired of them.
4. If you can affect effeminacy and a lisping softness in your speech it will go a great way towards winning the confidence and esteem of a sensible and lovely woman. Let your conversation never rise out of the level of balls, parties, fashions and the opera. The opera will be not only a pleasing but an appropriate theme for you, as it will associate you, in the lady's mind, with the charming subject of music, reminding her that quavers and unmeaning words are always softer than its more manly parts.
5. By all means wear jewelry; if you have it not of your own, borrow it, or get it some other way, for you must be sore that you go not into the presence of any woman, whose good opinion is worth having, without being loaded with jewelry. An immense breast-pin, either of diamonds or paste, with two rings on each hand and a heavy fob chain, twelve inches long will be sufficient to prove that you are a man of substantial good sense, and that you are the possessor of a heart which is worthy of the confidence and admiration of any woman.