Oh! but books are such safe company! They keep your secrets well; they never boast that they made your eyes glisten, or your cheek flush, or your heart throb. You may take up your favourite author, and love him at a distance just as warmly as you like, for all the sweet fancies and glowing thoughts that have winged your lonely hours so fleetly and so sweetly. Then you may close the book, and lean your cheek against the cover, as if it were the face of a dear friend; shut your eyes and soliloquise to your heart’s content, without fear of misconstruction, even though you should exclaim in the fulness of your enthusiasm, “What an adorable soul that man has!” You may put the volume under your pillow, and let your eye and the first ray of morning light fall on it together, and no Argus eyes shall rob you of that delicious pleasure, no carping old maid, or strait-laced Pharisee shall cry out, “it isn’t proper!” You may have a thousand petty, provoking, irritating annoyances through the day, and you shall come back again to your dear old book, and forget them all in dream land. It shall be a friend that shall be always at hand; that shall never try you by caprice, or pain you by forgetfulness, or wound you by distrust.
“Study men!”
Well, try it! I don’t believe there’s any neutral territory where that interesting study can be pursued as it should be. Before you get to the end of the first chapter, they’ll be making love to you from the mere force of habit—and because silks, and calicoes, and delaines, naturally suggest it. It’s just as natural to them as it is to sneeze when a ray of sunshine flashes suddenly in their faces. “Study 162men!” That’s a game, my dear, that two can play at. Do you suppose they are going to sit quietly down and let you dissect their hearts, without returning the compliment? No, indeed! that’s where they differ slightly from “books!”—they always expect an equivalent.
Men are a curious study! Sometimes it pays to read to “the end of the volume,” and then again, it don’t—mostly the latter!
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