You win approaches by artful counterfeit of earnestness, and
dash away any _naivete_ of confidence with some brave sophism of the
world. A doubt or a distrust piques your pride, and makes attentions
wear a humility that wins anew. An indifference piques you more, and
throws into your art a counter-indifference,--lit up by bold flashes of
feeling,--sparkling with careless brilliancies, and crowned with a
triumph of neglect.
It is curious how ingeniously a man's vanity will frame apologies for
such action.--It is pleasant to give pleasure; you like to see a joyous
sparkle of the eye, whether lit up by your presence or by some buoyant
fancy. It is a beguiling task to weave words into some soft, melodious
flow, that shall keep the ear and kindle the eye; and to strew it over
with half-hidden praises, so deftly couched in double terms that their
aroma shall only come to the heart hours afterward, and seem to be the
merest accidents of truth. It is a happy art to make such subdued show
of emotion as seems to struggle with pride, and to flush the eye with a
moisture, of which you seem ashamed, and yet are proud. It is a pretty
practice to throw an earnestness into look and gesture, that shall seem
full of pleading, and yet--ask nothing!
And yet it is hard to admire greatly the reputation of that man who
builds his triumphs upon womanly weakness; that distinction is not
over-enduring whose chiefest merit springs out of the delusions of a too
trustful heart.
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