attention to her (Goethe gave this as a practical receipt), the whole life of a woman, in fact, being an expression of this side of her nature, a man, if a woman treats him rudely or indifferently, feels repelled by her. Nothing makes a man so happy as the love of a girl; even if he did not at first return her love, there is a great probability of love being aroused in him. The love of a man for whom she does not carets only a gratification of the vanity of a woman, or an awakening and rousing of slumbering desires. A woman extends her claims equally to all men on earth.
The shamelessness and heartlessness of women are shown in the way in which they talk of being loved. A man feels ashamed of being loved, because he is always in the position of being the active, free agent, and because he knows that he can never give himself entirely to love, and there is nothing about which he is so silent, even when there is no special reason for him to fear that he might compromise the lady by talking. A woman boasts about her love affairs, and parades them before other women in order to make them envious of her. Woman does not look upon a man's inclination for her so much as a tribute to her actual worth, or a deep insight into her nature, as the bestowing a value on her which she otherwise would not have, as the gift to her of an existence and essence with which she justifies herself before others.
The remark in an earlier chapter about the unfailing memory of woman for all the compliments she has ever received since childhood is explained by the foregoing facts. It is from compliments, first of all, that woman gets a sense of her "value," and that is why women expect men to be "polite." Politeness is the easiest form of pleasing a woman, and however little it costs a man it is dear to a woman' who never forgets an attention, and lives upon the most insipid flattery, even in her old age. One only remembers what possesses a value in one's eyes; it may safely be said that it is for compliments women have the most developed memory. The woman can attain a sense of value by these external aids, because she does not possess within her an
