I

1.

Deceits of the art.

WON'T pretend that love is free from deceit. It is an elaborate

piece of play-acting, generally so unconscious that the actors are deceived. Consider any young couple; mark the man's tie---not his everyday tie; consider the mildness of his anger when in the presence of his beloved and ascertain his vocabulary when he misses a train; mark the reply: "Yes, darling". and question his sisters. Likewise, consider the girl's vivacity (if he likes a joke), her beautiful silences (if he is moody). They are acting, both of them, and they are not to blame. All art is conscious. Love too has its technic, and any woman of experience will confess that the skilled lover pleases her better than blundering emotion, however sincere.

2. Courtship divides itself into two stages: first, the approach, and second, the development until it produces, perhaps marriage, and possibly love. The first point in the approach is this: implant in the mind of the beloved the idea that he or she might be accepted as a lover. Before one makes love to a woman it is necessary that she should have imagined you as a possible lover. An attractive young woman, on speaking terms with something between a dozen and a hundred men, obviously cannot have

pictured herself in amative relations with all of them. There is the old story where a matchmaker, con. fronted with cold Arabella and frigid James, told Arabella that James adored her, and informed James that Arabella dreamed only of him. This provided the necessary approach: each one was then able to imagine the other as a lover, and the rest could be left to them.

That difficulty is particularly strong between playfellows. People who have known each other since childhood, who have seen each other petulant, selfish, bad-tempered and dirty, fail to realize the change. Knowing each other very well, they find it difficult to love each other. The same applies to people who are supposed to be too old, too low in financial or social status. The beloved meets them frequently, but it does not occur to her that she might love the grown-up-man who told her stories when she was a little girl, or this minor clerk in her father's business.

3. The fascination of the beloved by one's wit, by one's strength, one's courage, one's elegance, are not worth discussing, for the lover nat. urally shows all that is best in him; but he neglects valuable weapons, viz: that which is worst in him. This does not mean that the lover should afford a vulgar exhibition of rakishness and evil-doing, even though this have a limited appeal to women, particularly when they are good. I mean rather that lovers tend to ignore the value of weakness. The art of courtship would tell us not to lose emotional opportunities to exhibit despondency, uncertainty of will, fear of the future, perhaps even tears. The same applies to poverty. The lover who is poor but wise will let his beloved see how his poverty bars him off from his dream. Again, if a man be lonely, he will let his beloved feel that she is the one ship on a hopeless sea, where no other sail catches the eye of her lover. Or is it oddity, which leads to unpopularity? The fact that he talks at all of his unpopularity convinces his beloved that she must be more discerning than other people: self-satisfaction encourages love. The lover will make use of the feminine tendency to soothe the wretched.

4. Another important point, illrecognized by lovers, is that most women are highly responsive to the attraction of the arts, of letters, of music. They do not understand them much better than men, but they like them better. What the lover needs to do is to increase the tolerance with which the average crude man seems to view the arts. If he has no wings, then let him not clip hers.

5. The impudent man scores heavily if he has enough tact to discover his moment, enough common sense to discover how much the beloved will stand. and then slightly to exceed her limit. In my notebook stands the case of a young man who, at an evening party, ventured to kiss an attractive girl after half an hour's acquaintance. She was furious. The impudent youth protested her beauty, the irresistible temptation, etc., and flattered her into such content that, spontaneously, she said: "All right, I'll forgive you." The youth replied: "I don't want to be forgiven, I want to be understood." During the mental disarray created in the lady's mind by a reply so audacious, he was able to renew his offense.

6. The last suggestion on the art of approach in courtship is the most potent of all: it consists of talking of love. The artistic lover need not be crude: only in the latter stage should he become personal. Love, being a large subject, can be discussed from the emotional, the mystical, the sportive, the biological point of view.

Such conversation produces a favorable atmosphere; it leads to anecdotes, confidences, and anticipations; a desire arises to know something of these emotions, to know them soon, to know them with well, why not? The lover has attained a a point point where his approach will no longer surprise, or else it will be a surprise not devoid of attractiveness. It is now his business to convert a companionship already tender into a relation more precise. It now lies with him to effect conquest by courtship.

7. The principal object in courtship is to strengthen the vanity of the beloved object. This, as a rule, is easy, and one might often think that the vanity which exists needs no strengthening: that is deceptive. You see a woman who seems very pleased with herself, but she may possibly think herself a poor little thing among Olympians; the smaller she feels, the more she boasts. Admire all her good points, and especially her bad ones. For "hot temper" one may say "vivacity"; of the hands which are her only defect one can say that they are "intelligent."

Indeed, her good points may be let alone; she knows all about those, and less skilled lovers have informed her. It is her mediocre points she wants to have appreciated, partly because this reassures her, partly because it convinces her of the originality of the lover's taste. Flattery is more than gifts, for it produces self-esteem, and self-esteem spreads toward its creator as the leaf turns toward the sun. Of course the flattery should be skilled. It needs much more technic to make a woman accept the remark: "You are perfectly beautiful," than to offer her a delicate compliment. The brutal compliment requires an education of the voice, an eloquence of the glance, a dramatic mixture of audacity and confusion, which suggests that he who pays the compliment is carried away. Of course the compliment should be sincere. but the truth put cleverly can seem more true. Harper's, Jan. '23 (To be continued)

Ability or Seniority to Rule the

Senate?

There is much promise in Senator McCormicks' advocacy of a complete change in the committee system. Though there is yet no assurance that this new idea will become a reality in the Senate itself, the public response has had an enthusiasm which the dominant power will do well to take to heart.

One of the most curious aspects of the American governmental svstem is the few lessons that it has learned from practical American business life. The last thing a prosperous American business house would do would be to organize its executive staffs on the model of Congress. What would Americans think of a business which filled its offices on the basis of seniority? If the Standard Oil Co. or the United States Steel Corporation had selected its presidents, vicepresidents, and executive heads from a list of names, always taking the one at the top-a position the individual had attained not through merit but merely through length of service-would they ever have attained their present success? Americans pride themselves upon the fact that merit is the only thing that counts in a man's progress; that those most fitted to fill the important posts, irrespective of birth, influence, age, or other fortuitous circumstances, are the men selected to lead; the success of the Nation has been largely attributed to this fact. But the one place where this great principle is disregarded is in the organization of Congress. Both Houses transact their business chiefly through committees. Every Representative or Senator, at the beginning of his career, is placed on one or more of these committees. His

name, in his first term, invariably goes to the bottom of the list. The position he occupies in succeeding years has no relation to his talents or his industry. The qualities that contribute to his success in private life have no influence upon his progress on a congressional committee. As fellow members die, or resign, or retire, his name is automatically advanced. In time, if he remains in Congress long enough, the Congressman or Senator becomes chairman of his committee. He may be one of the biggest blockheads in the House, but he is the senior member in years of service; that is the only question asked.

The Senate has certainly lost respect and esteem in recent years. The feeling that it is no longer representative is gaining emphasis daily. The suggested change would bring its best men forward and therefore make the body function in the manner that would best promote the public welfare. The World's Work, Jan. '23.

The Income Tax Delusion

One of the pitfalls of taxation is the delusion that taxes should be levied upon great fortunes and rich men, and not on everybody. This is a delusion because it is impractical. It is impractical because rich men can dodge taxes and poor men cannot.

For instance, to judge by the in. come tax figures, it might seem that millionaires are becoming extinct in America. Here is a table showing the number paying an income tax of a million dollars or more a year as given by B. C. Forbes:

No. Paying. Inc. Paid on. 206......$464,273,644

.....

Year.

1916

1919 1920

.....

.....

65...... 152,650,245 33...... 77,078,139

But these figures are really flimflam. The truth is that there are more multi-millionaires in America than ever before, except for a short period during the war boom. The explanation is that the rich man has learned to dodge having to pay the tax collector more than seventy cents on each dollar of his income. He does this little trick by investing his capital in securities free from income tax levy. Such securities are county, state, road, water and similar bonds.

Editorial, Current Opinion, Jan. '23.

Open Counsels Rather than Secret Orders

whether

In our opinion, the body of American citizenship needs no secret societies, or special private organiza_ tions, to protect its best interests against its own members. It is the business of government, local and general, to protect all citizens in their rights. It is the duty of political parties to rival one another in endeavors to promote the common wellbeing. If privately constituted groups, Protestant, or Catholic, or otherwise, are holding narrow views, er are embittered against their neighbors of other religions or of different racial origins, the best procedure lies in frank and direct argument and intercourse. Let the best Jews, Catholics, and Protestants in their neighborhoods come together in efforts to make their communities better places in The leaders of all which to live. creeds will soon grow to esteem one another. We have already had great cooperation in relief work, growing out of war conditions. There are many neighborhoods throughout the United States in which Protestant ministers, Catholic priests, and Jewish rabbis work together in harmony, all of them stimulated to better effort by the spirit of service

that they find in men whose creeds are not exactly the same as their own.

Editorial Review of Reviews, Jan. '23.

Instinctive, Perhaps, but Why Brag about it?

Cincinnati's Germanistic Society recently announced its intention to spread the gospel of German "kultur" throughout America. Thus Cincinnati's Teutonic element resumes its interrupted functions. So it will be with similar societies in other cities.

The reappearance of these Ger_ manistic groups is a reminder of the unconquerable power of that force in human nature known as "pride of race." Pride of race is universal. No race ever stops bragging about its fighting quality, or its civilizing influence, or its beauty, or its strength.

Sir Hugh Clifford says that the Sakai, a tribe of naked savages in the Malay peninsula, with a mentality just above that of the orangutans, have no word in their language for men, except the name of their tribe. They only are men. All others are something less than men, inferior creatures, lower animals.

Psychoanalysts inform us that every healthy-minded person believes that somehow, in some obvious or mysterious way, he is a chosen one of God, distinguished over and above his fellows, set apart Superior. Persons, they say, who lack this wholesome pride of self, or lose it, are mentally sick! They suffer from the derangement known as an "inferiority complex." Pride of race, then, is only a generalized form of healthy personal vanity. It is cheer_ ful self-confidence. The capacity to live on comfortable terms with one's self and one's world. Current Opinion, Jan. '23.

1. The greatest waste of labor. 2. Permanence of European products.

3. Our expensive mania for the

new.

4. The bargain-hunting mania. 5. The fault with the public.

0

UR wastes are so many and so vast that it is indiscreet to speak of this or that waste as the greatest of all. But a strong case might be made for the waste of labor through its employment upon materials that have the shortest possible life. I mean upon cloth that goes the soonest into tatters, upon leather that tears and cracks, upon timber that is not well seasoned, upon roads that fall into immediate decay, upon motors that must be junked in a few years, upon houses that are jerry-built, and, in fact, upon nearly every article manu. factured in quantity for the American public.

2. We cry out against the high wages that must be paid, and yet we employ materials that would be discarded in many countries of Europe. What traveler abroad has not marveled at the churches and public buildings centuries old, at the substantially-built dwellings, welllaid pavements, everlasting stone bridges, excellent cloth, stout boots, sturdy vehicles, and nearly everything else that meets the eye. Permanence is written all over the European product. It is paradoxical that in England, where labor demands lower wages than it does here, it should be employed, as a rule, upon honest materials for the

creation of products that are lasting, while in our country it is too often put at work upon materials that have little life in them.

3. If materials like the serges. jerseys, whipcords. and broadcloths of old were now obtainable, the demand for them would, I believe, outstrip the supply. In the presence of such cloth, one trial of our modern products, which lose their color and their shape and become threadbare in a few months, would be a lesson to any man. We shall never. have again, I suppose, such laces, velvets, tapestries, carpets, damasks. porcelains, pottery, cabinetwork, leathers, pots and pans of brass, pewter, silver, and gold as the age of handicraft gave us. This is a machine age; but all the raw materials we still have, and men can, if they will have modern labor employed upon good, honest stuff capable of rendering durable service.

It is said, I know, that this day of ours demands things new and fresh. New styles arouse the most lively interest, not only in hats and gowns, but in clocks and watches, and in a multitude of other things, like these last, where durability would seem to be the quality most to be desired. This passion for the new is responsible for economic evils that are leading into serious troubles. More and more, if this tendency grows, will our manufacturers be led to vie with each other in creating new styles for each change of season; and the time is not far distant when every product of last season will be unbearable to our eyes. Of course the cost to society will be heavy. Twelve times the labor in twelve pairs of silk hose will not serve our daugh