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( Originally Published 1892 ) Woman's influence on man has been discussed in the pulpit and on the rostrum, and over and over illustrated upon the stage and in the divorce court. Authors have embodied it in romance and poets have sung of it, and yet the subject has not been half exhausted, so profound is it. Once upon a time I believed that all women belonged to one of two classes, viz., the good and the bad. And that the influence of the good woman must of necessity be good, as the influence of the other class was correspondingly evil. But acquaintance with humanity taught me that these two classes are possessed of many subdivisions. First:—There are the sweetly good women who have no comprehension of evil, and are good because they cannot help it. Second:—The passionately good women whose intensely sympathetic natures are able to sound the heights and depths of emotions. Women who have felt the power of temptation from within, but whose white souls have been strong enough to keep close to truth and principle. Third :—The goody-good women whose virtues are all negative. The members of the first class are always shocked, wounded and startled at the thought of evil doing. Those of the second are full of pity and charity, realizing the possibility of a false step. Those of the third are more cruel than the grave to any misdoer. I found, too, that wickedness had also its classifications : First:—The woman of poorly developed moral nature, no balance, and possessed of violent emotions and a reckless love of pleasure. Second:—The woman of coldly calculating ambition, unlimited greed, and a quick brain with dulled moral perception. Third:—The woman who is all heart and no head; in whom the luxurious love element has run wild, choking the moral nature, as an unpruned rose vine will choke and smother lily buds and moss beds. The first class we hear of only through the criminal courts and police records. The second we meet frequently in society, splendidly clothed and dispensing hospitality to a large train of followers. The third we hear spoken of always with a half apology—and those who are not under the spell of her fascinations are either pitying or condemning her. She is only goodness gone astray. The effect of the sweetly good women upon man is like the perfume of a flower that grew in his childhood's garden, or a strain of music heard in his youth. He is ashamed of his grosser appetites when he is in her presence. He would not like her to know of his errors and vices. He feels like another man when near her, and realizes that he has a spiritual nature. Yet as the effect of the strain of muic or the perfume of the flower is necessary, so often her influence ceases when he is absent from her, unless she be the woman who rules his life. The passionately good woman is quite different in her influence. He does not forget the grosser man when in her presence; he is conscious of himself in his entirety ; he even is inclined to confide to her his temptations and his weaknesses, so sure he feels that she could understand and make him stronger. His respect for her is so intense he feels that he could reveal his heart to her. She stimulates his sense of honor and self-respect, and long after he has gone from her presence her influence is an incentive to self-control and noble actions. The goody-good woman, on the contrary, drives him to desperate thoughts and deeds. So unattractive does she render virtue that he rushes from her presence with a wild inclination to be vicious. The recklessly evil woman recruits her ranks largely from the men who are obliged to dwell much of the time in the atmosphere of the goody-good woman. %The recklessly bad woman, however, seldom proves more than a brief diversion to the most desperate man. He is soon shocked and disgusted, for however undeveloped may be his spiritual nature, man has an innate desire to respect woman and never finds lasting satisfaction where he cannot feel respect. The coldly designing woman is an excellent actress and something of a hypnotist. She draws men into her power to serve her own purposes, flatters their vanity, studies their weaknesses,- arid usually gains her ends, that of obtaining money favors or influence. She can simulate any emotion, and stops at nothing to further her interests. To the credit, in general, of mankind, be it said that she usually selects a weak type of the genus homo to operate upon, which accounts for her repeated successes. The most dangerous woman in her influence upon men is the good woman has gone wrong through excess of her affectional element in her nature. Man responds to this element in woman's nature as the steel responds to the magnet, and unless he is strongly anchored in principle, and a happy home life, he is liable to become the hopeless slave of this woman, if he falls in her way, even at the sacrifice of name and honor. There is a peculiar order of women who may belong to any one of these classes. Her peculiarity consists of a leech-like quality which slowly saps the vitality of those with whom she dwells. Her intimate associates of either sex invariably lose strength and force, and she usually buries one or more husbands—the number regulated by the amount of physical charms and mental attractions she may possess. This woman seems to belong to no particular type. She may be very good, or very bad, morally; highly emotional or phlegmatic, and I have seen her small, thin and delicate and again found her among the superbly developed Junos. She may be quiet and diffident in manner, or brilliantly entertaining; but whatever she is, this mystic occult quality quite unknown and unrecognized by herself, and as yet unexplained by science, secretly feeds upon the life forces of those nearest her. She thinks it a strange dispensation of Providence which sends sickness to her dear ones, and deprives her of all her husbands, never suspecting that this death-dealing quality lies within herself. After having been in her presence a little while, without knowing why, you begin to experience a sense of fatigue and lassitude; and yet she may have been exceedingly brilliant and entertaining. I knew such a woman—one of the best of her sex, morally and mentally, and fair physically. Yet so depressing and enervating was her effect upon a friend whom she visited, that the lady was obliged to write to the guest's husband asking him to shorten his wife's visit by calling her home under some pretext. "I cannot explain to you what it is," the hostess wrote, "I am fond of your wife, and I enjoy her society, but I am so overcome by lassitude and weakness, after I have been in the house with her all day, that I can hardly stand. It is some peculiarity she possesses that draws upon my vitality, and I must ask you to send for her." The husband replied : "You know now why I so willingly consented to her making you a long visit. I supposed I was the only person she could affect in this way. I have saved my health and life, only by absenting myself from her half the time." Many a case of marital incompatibility could be traced to a similar cause.
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