Helen Rowland
Reflections of a Bachelor Girl

THE average man looks on matrimony as a hitching post where he can tie a woman and leave her until he comes home nights.

STRANGE, how joyfully a man will pay a lawyer five hundred dollars for untying the knot that he begrudged paying a clergyman fifty dollars for tying.

A MAN buttons a woman's dress up the back with almost the same grace and alacrity that a woman displays in climbing a barbed wire fence.

"JUST once more" is the Devil's best argument.

VARIETY is the spice of love.

THE only people who believe in a personal devil, nowadays, are the ones who are married to that kind.

THE girl who marries for money is bought; but the girl who marries for love is sold.

A WISE lover, like a good cook, is one who knows when the fire is out.

ALIMONY is the price of peace.

IN marriage, the love-light so often goes out as soon as the gas bills begin to come in.

THE only way to be happy with a husband is to learn to be happy without him most of the time.

LOVE is just the shine on the jewel of matrimony; but, after all, the shine on a jewel is the whole thing.

A MAN firmly believes that, if he can only keep his wife in the straight and narrow path, he can go out and zig-zag all over the downward one without falling from grace.

A GIRL is never so surprised when a man proposes to her as he is.

LOVE doesn't really "make the world go 'round," it only makes us so dizzy that everything seems to be going round.

ENNUI is "that tired feeling" that a girl has when the right man doesn't show up and the wrong one does.

STRANGE, how joyfully a man will pay a lawyer five hundred dollars for untying the knot that he begrudged paying a clergyman fifty dollars for tying.

WHEN a girl marries, she exchanges the attentions of all the other men of her acquaintance for the inattention of just one.

IT gives a girl silver threads among the gold to marry her ardent admirer and find out afterward that she has tied herself to a life-critic.

AS FAR as men are concerned, a woman's reputation for brains is worse than no reputation at all.

ALAS, if husbands were only like sewing machines, and we could have them sent up on trial!

KISSING a girl, without first telling her that you love her, is as small and mean as letting a salesman take you for a free ride in an automobile when you have no intention of buying it.

DIVORCE is the "Great Divide," over which many men think they will pass into Heaven.

A MAN can never be made to understand why a woman will pay fifty dollars for a hat containing ten dollars worth of material and forty dollars worth of style.

YOUTH will be youth; a young man chases temptation, folly, and chorus girls as naturally as a kitten chases its tail.

FLINGING yourself at a man's head is like flinging a bone at a cat; it doesn't fascinate him, it frightens him.

MEN say they admire a woman with high ideals and principles; but it's the kind with high heels and dimples that a wife hesitates to introduce to her husband.

MARRIAGE is the black coffee that a man takes to settle him after the love-feast.

LOVE is the feeling that makes a man turn on the hot water when he meant to light the gas, go hunting for a collar when what he wanted was a pair of socks, shave every day, and forget whether or not he has had any lunch.

HAPPINESS is at high-tide at the full of the honeymoon.

SOMEHOW, a man who has been thrown over always lands on his knees to another girl.

A CONFIRMED bachelor girl is one who hasn't married – yet.

TOO many "flames" dry up the well-spring of love.

IT IS difficult for an old horse to learn new tricks – but an old man hasn't sense enough not to try.

THE tenderest spot in a man's make-up is sometimes the bald spot on top of his head.

NEVER worry for fear you have broken a man's heart; at the worst it is only sprained and a week's rest will put it in perfect working condition again.

A RICH girl need not bother to cultivate the art of conversation in order to be fascinating. Her money will do the talking.

NOTHING can exceed the grace and tenderness with which men make love – in novels – , except the off-hand commonplaceness with which they do it in real life.

ABOUT the only sign of personal individuality that the average woman is allowed to retain after she marries is her toothbrush.

THERE are just three brands of masculine affection: platonic, which is love without kisses; plutonic, which is kisses without love, and kisses WITH love – which is almost extinct.

OF course women should marry; no home is complete without a husband any more than it is without a cuckoo clock or a cat.

"HOME" is any four walls that enclose the right person.

NO MAN can understand why a woman shouldn't prefer a good reputation to a good time.

THE original fox was a man and the original grapes were the girls he couldn't kiss.

A MAN'S desire for a son is usually nothing but the wish to duplicate himself in order that such a remarkable pattern may not be lost to the world.

IT isn't the girls whom he has loved and lost that a man sighs for; it's those whom he has loved and never won.

LAZY men fancy that the wheel of life is a roulette wheel, on which fortunes are won only by chance.

EVERY time a woman gives a man a piece of her mind she loses a piece of his heart.

WHEN a man spends his time giving his wife criticism and advice instead of compliments, he forgets that it was not his good judgment, but his charming manners, that won her heart.

A MAN never marries when he ought to; he waits until some woman comes along and gets him so tangled up that he has to.

THE shortest way to Heaven or to Hell is via the Love Route, Limited.

IT MAY be bad form for a man to pay his wife compliments and call her pet-names in the presence of other women, but it's awfully good policy.

MANY a foolish runaway match has been prevented by the fact that a girl didn't have on her best silk stockings at the critical moment.

REMORSE is the feeling a man has when the bottle is empty or he has tired of the girl.

HUSBANDS are like Christmas gifts: you can't choose them; you've just got to sit down and wait until they arrive and then appear perfectly delighted with what you get.

THE beauty of variety in love or wine is that the moment a man discovers a new brand or a new girl, he forgets all about the others and honestly believes that he is tasting the real thing for the first time.

MATRIMONY should not be a prison but a privilege, and husbands and wives should not be jailors but jolliers.

THAT lump which a man feels in his throat when he is about to propose is the "don't" lump.

A MAN may read everything that ever was written about women and yet not know enough to avoid asking his wife a question when her mouth is full of pins.

THE oftener a man falls in love, the more easily and gracefully he does it; exercise seems to keep the heart in good working condition.

IT IS always a surprise to a woman when her husband sues for $200,000 for the alienation of her affections, which he never seemed to consider worth two cents.

MATRIMONY is a revolving door, round which husband and wife follow one another without ever meeting on the same side of any question.

MARRYING an old bachelor is like buying second-hand furniture.

LOVE always must end sooner or later – usually sooner than the girl expected and later than the man intended.

THE woman who insists on playing Solitaire in conversation is likely to end by playing Old Maid.

FROM the number of virtues and accomplishments that a man expects to find in one wife, you'd fancy he was marrying a harem.

DON'T worry for fear you may freeze a man's love out; the colder the wind you blow upon it, the higher you fan the flames.

THE saddest thing about married life is the opportunity it gives two otherwise agreeable people for telling one another the disagreeable truth.

THERE never was a man big and strong enough to get out his clean shirt and collar and fix the water for his bath.

IT'S when the game becomes a trifle stale that a man begins to feel conscientious qualms about flirting with a woman.

THE woman who pins her faith to a man won't find a safety-pin strong enough to stand the strain.

IN love, the best way to erase one face from the tablet of memory is to draw another across it.

A MAN'S ideal woman is the one he couldn't get.

A MAN may feel like a brute at taking a kiss from a nice girl – but it isn't until after he's gotten the kiss.

WHY should matrimony interfere with pleasure in this day of self-rocking cradles, self-cooking ranges – and self-supporting wives?

MOST men write a love-letter as cautiously as though they were writing for publication, or fame, or posterity.

THE man who breaks his social engagements with you before marriage, will break everything from his word to your heart, afterward.

PLATONIC friendship is a ship that starts for Nowhere and nearly always ends by being wrecked in the port of Love.

TO a man, marriage means giving up four out of five of the chiffonier drawers; to a woman, giving up four out of five of her opinions.

A MAN'S conscience is like his head; it never bothers him until "the morning after."

A MAN'S shoulders are not always as broad as they're padded.

MEN say they hate anything loud about a woman; it must be disgust that makes them always turn around to stare after a peroxide blonde.

THE saddest sight on earth is an old bachelor trying to sew on a button with a blunt needle and a piece of string.

THERE are some men who, before marriage, will risk their lives to pick up your parasol from in front of a whizzing automobile who wouldn't get off the sofa after marriage to pick up anything you might drop, from a hint, to a baby.

A HUSBAND gets so used to his wife's conversation that after a while it doesn't interrupt his reading of the newspaper any more than the plunking in the steam pipes.

OF course men admire a circumspect woman above all things, but they seldom invite her out to supper.

NOTHING bores a man worse than the devotion of the girl before the last.

IT'S rather sad to see how easily a man gets "that tired feeling" after a love affair has become a bit stale.

A MAN may send you a gold-handled umbrella with your monogram on it in diamonds and mean nothing but good-fellowship, but if he offers to put it up and carry it over you for fear the mist will spoil your feathers you may be sure he's in love.

LOVE letters lead to all sorts of complications, but post cards tell no tales.

ASKING a girl if you may kiss her before doing it is an insulting way of laying all the responsibility on her.

A MARRIED man thinks that if he concedes to smooth his top hair and carry a cane he is sufficiently dressy to go out anywhere with his wife.

BRIDEGROOMS have that sheepish look because every one of them is morally certain that he is a lamb being led to the slaughter.

A WIFE sort of loses her awe and admiration for men after she has seen her husband without a collar and with his face covered with shaving lather and his top hair sticking up in tufts.

A MAN seldom discovers that he hasn't married his affinity until his wife begins to get crow's-feet around the eyes.

IF YOU want to be really popular pat a bald man on the head; call an old man "naughty boy"; treat a young man with timid respect; cling to a little man like the vine to the mighty oak, and tell a fat man how you love to dance with him.

THE man who declares a friend innocent even when he knows he is guilty, and defends a woman's reputation even when it is scarcely worth defending, is not written down a liar by the recording angel.

ODD how a man always gets remorse confused with reform; a cold bath, a dose of bromo-selzer, and his wife's forgiveness will make him feel so moral that he will begin to patronize you.

IT'S as hard to get a man to stay home after you've married him as it was to get him to go home before you married him.

A MAN hates emotions; when a girl pours her heart out to him he feels as if she has emptied the warm water jug or the molasses cruet over him.

A WOMAN will lie to anybody else on earth sooner than to the man she loves; but a man will lie to the woman he loves sooner than to anybody else on earth.

MATRIMONY is a bargain – and somebody has got to get the worst of the bargain.

THE most uncomfortable thing about being married is that you can never tell whether your friends are envying you or pitying you.

ALL a man asks for in the love-game is beginner's luck.

POKER and love are both games of bluff.

A MAN has so many more temptations than a woman – because he knows where to go and find them.

A MAN will sit on the edge of the bed, holding one shoe in his hand and gazing into space for half an hour, and then send the cook into hysterics and the waitress into nervous prostration because he has only ten minutes left in which to eat his breakfast.

MOST bridal couples pile enough honey into the first month of matrimony to last a whole lifetime if thinned out and spread on economically.

WONDER if Adam ever scolded Eve for her extravagance in fig leaves.

A BABY'S kisses taste of stale milk, a boy's of jam, a young man's of cigarettes and a husband's of cocktails.

OF course people can't carry their party manners into marriage; but if they could, marriage would be more like a party and less like a prize fight.

SOME marriages of convenience turn out to be about the most inconvenient things that could possibly have happened.

WHEN perfect frankness comes in at the door love flies out of the window.

MIGHT as well hail a Broadway car on the wrong side of the street as to hail a man on the wrong side of his vanity.

DIVORCE is getting to be as painless as dentistry. Two people pack each other's trunks, genially shake hands farewell, wish each other luck, and then go off to Europe while the lawyers fight it out.

A MAN forgets all about how to make love after ten years of matrimony; but it's wonderful how quickly he can get into practice again after his wife dies.

DON'T flatter yourself because he calls every Sunday evening that it is a sign that he's getting serious. It may only be a sign that everything else is closed.

NO doubt when a man puts his cheek against a girl's he always imagines that it feels as smooth as hers does.

GETTING married is so easy that most men are suspicious of it.

A MOTHER-IN-LAW may be the serpent in the Garden of Eden; but if it hadn't been for the serpent whom would Adam have had to blame for all his troubles?

WHEN two people marry they "lock their hearts together and throw away the key;" then they begin looking around for some old legal nail to pick the lock with.

LUCK in love consists in getting not the person you want, but the person who wants you. If you don't believe it try being married to somebody who is not in love with you.

A MAN'S idea of an engagement is a chance to find out whether or not he really enjoys kissing that particular girl.

IT'S not his understanding of the plot of the opera that makes a man appreciate it, but the "understanding" of the chorus ladies.

A MAN thinks that by marrying a woman he proves he loves her, and that therefore nothing more need ever be said about it.

THE average man looks on matrimony as a hitching post where he can tie a woman and leave her until he comes home nights.

THERE is nothing so uninteresting to a a man as a contentedly married woman.

A MAN'S sweethearts are like his cigars; he has many of each of them, loves each one as tenderly as the preceding, and appreciates each according to its expensiveness.

A HUSBAND can always find fault with his wife, but, then, even archangels could pick flaws in one another if they had to drink coffee at the same table every morning.

MATRIMONY is, like the weather, mighty uncertain, and the happiest people are those who are neither looking for storms nor banking on sunshine, but are just willing to go along sensibly and take what comes.

IT MAY mean nothing, but it's very mortifying to a woman when she takes her husband's dog for a walk and he tries to go into every corner saloon.

IT'S easier to hide your light under a bushel than to keep your shady side dark.

FUNNY how a married man who is trying to flirt with you always begins by telling you what a trying disposition his wife has.

IT'S harder to get around a husband without flattery than to get around Cape Horn without a compass.

A MAN marries a girl for what she is, and then invariably tries to make her over into something else which he thinks she ought to be.

WHEN an ordinary man does not smoke, drink, nor swear, be careful to find out what worse folly it is that he is addicted to.

A MAN gets his sentiment for a woman so mixed up with the brand of perfume she uses that half the time he doesn't know which is which.

HUSBANDS are like the pictures in the anti-fat advertisements – so different before and after taking.

THERE are moments when the meanest of women may feel a sisterly sympathy for her husband's first wife.

A WOMAN may have a great deal of difficulty getting married the first time, but after that it's easy, because where one man leads the others will follow like a flock of sheep.

THERE are so many ways of punishing a refractory wife that the husband who cannot find one is either a timid, mawkish creature or – a gentleman.

WHEN a lawyer is slow about getting a pretty woman her divorce it is because he wants a chance to make love to her before she is in a position to start a breach of promise suit.

SOME men feel that the only thing they owe the woman who marries them is a grudge.

BLUE BEARD isn't the only bridegroom who ever went to the altar with a closet full of dead loves on his conscience.

IT isn't what a man can see through the holes in a peek-a-boo waist that makes the garment attractive, but what he tries to see and can't.

A MAN who would turn up his nose at an overdone chop or an overdone biscuit will swallow an overdone compliment with the keenest relish.

TOBACCO and love and olives are all acquired tastes; your first smoke makes you sick, your first olive tastes bitter, and your first love affair makes you unhappy.

MOST men fancy that being married to a woman means merely seeing her in the mornings instead of in the evenings.

A REFORMED rake is like a made-over hat or made-over tea – he has lost his style and his flavor.

A MAN is always advising his wife to wear common-sense shoes, but that isn't the kind he turns around in the street to stare after.

IT isn't the man who is willing to stay up late to talk to you, but the one who is willing to get up early to work for you, that you ought to waste your powder on.

WHEN a woman is pretty and married an optimistic man can always console himself with the thought that perhaps she is unhappy because her husband doesn't appreciate her.

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