Jerome Klapka Jerome

THE SECOND THOUGHTS OF AN IDLE FELLOW
complete book, e-book

Nové Literární doupě!

Literární doupě bylo modernizováno a přechází pod novou doménu literdo.com!.

Nový web LD vám přínáší ještě více knih s možností výhodného stahování většího množství e-knih podle vlastního výběru (tedy nejen jednotlivých knih nebo balíčků podle autorů) ve formátech ePub , PDF  a MOBI.

 Přejít na nový web Literární doupě

 

ON THE PREPARATION AND EMPLOYMENT OF LOVE PHILTRES

Occasionally a friend will ask me some such question as this, Do you prefer dark women or fair? Another will say, Do you like tall women or short? A third, Do you think light-hearted women, or serious, the more agreeable company? I find myself in the position that, once upon a time, overtook a certain charming young lady of taste who was asked by an anxious parent, the years mounting, and the family expenditure not decreasing, which of the numerous and eligible young men, then paying court to her, she liked the best. She replied, that was her difficulty. She could not make up her mind which she liked the best. They were all so nice. She could not possibly select one to the exclusion of all the others. What she would have liked would have been to marry the lot, but that, she presumed, was impracticable.

I feel I resemble that young lady, not so much, perhaps, in charm and beauty as indecision of mind, when questions such as the above are put to me. It is as if one were asked one's favourite food. There are times when one fancies an egg with one's tea. On other occasions one dreams of a kipper. Today one clamours for lobsters. To-morrow one feels one never wishes to see a lobster again; one determines to settle down, for a time, to a diet of bread and milk and rice-pudding. Asked suddenly to say whether I preferred ices to soup, or beefsteaks to caviare, I should be nonplussed.

I like tall women and short, dark women and fair, merry women and grave.

Do not blame me, Ladies, the fault lies with you. Every right-thinking man is an universal lover; how could it be otherwise? You are so diverse, yet each so charming of your kind; and a man's heart is large. You have no idea, fair Reader, how large a man's heart is: that is his trouble--sometimes yours.

May I not admire the daring tulip, because I love also the modest lily? May I not press a kiss upon the sweet violet, because the scent of the queenly rose is precious to me?

"Certainly not," I hear the Rose reply. "If you can see anything in her, you shall have nothing to do with me."

"If you care for that bold creature," says the Lily, trembling, "you are not the man I took you for. Good-bye."

"Go to your baby-faced Violet," cries the Tulip, with a toss of her haughty head. "You are just fitted for each other."

And when I return to the Lily, she tells me that she cannot trust me. She has watched me with those others. She knows me for a gad-about. Her gentle face is full of pain.

So I must live unloved merely because I love too much.

My wonder is that young men ever marry. The difficulty of selection must be appalling. I walked the other evening in Hyde Park. The band of the Life Guards played heart-lifting music, and the vast crowd were basking in a sweet enjoyment such as rarely woos the English toiler. I strolled among them, and my attention was chiefly drawn towards the women. (...)

(......)