INTRODUCTION 

In theory, all obstacles to a proposal being out of the way, the man forthwith proposes. As a matter of fact, however, the obstacles are never completely out of the way. The man may temporarily forget them, he may in the turmoil of his emotions minimize them, or he may in a mood of optimism or enthusiasm look upon their removal as only a matter of time. But even when the obstacles are thus temporarily eclipsed, action does not always follow. The man may hesitate or procrastinate until the temporary eclipse of his objections has passed and marriage again appears a foolhardy and doubtful undertaking. THE THING TO DO, THEREFORE, IS TO GET HIM TO ACT DURING THE TEMPORARY ECLIPSE. There are three ways in which this can be done: First, by making it easy for him to speak out; second, by making it hard for him NOT to; and third, by making immediate action appear urgent and necessary. We will now take up these methods in detail, beginning with the first.

In making it easy for the man to act, one of the first requirements, as brought out in the last chapter, is the maintenance of an enthusiastic and optimistic atmosphere.

A more difficult requirement, and an equally important one, is the maintenance of a romantic or sentimental atmosphere. IT IS HARD FOR THE MAN TO BECOME INTENSELY SENTIMENTAL IN MATTER-OF-FACT SURROUNDINGS; while in romantic situations it is natural and easy…We will now consider how to create romantic situations and how to encourage sentimental emotions.

When the young man calls on her, for example, what is the girl to avoid and what is she to seek? The first thing she is to avoid is the presence of a third person. No man ever becomes romantic in the presence of a third person…The next thing she must avoid, if the call is in the evening, is bright or brilliant lights. In the glare of such lights reason is uppermost, not sentiment.

But the atmosphere can be made even more suggestive. If it is winter, for example, and the wind is
howling outside, and sleet dashing against the window, how cozy and comforting it is for the man and the girl to snuggle up in a davenport before a grate fire, and with all the other lights dimmed, to sit and dream.

In Spring and Summer, equally romantic effects can be secured. They can sit on the veranda, or in a lawn swing, look up at the stars and dream. If there is a moon, so much the better…Or perhaps you are near a river, a lake, or some similar body of water. Night, water, and romance are inseparable.

Even in broad daylight the effect of water is often spell-binding, especially upon young people who live in a crowded city.

Therefore the girl in the city should endeavor on every occasion possible to spend an afternoon or evening in the park and near the water, or at the seashore, or any place that gives the couple a chance to enjoy the beauty and peacefulness of Nature. In the absence of a body of water, a stroll through some beautiful garden, or in the hills or mountains, or a persimmon hunting or nutting expedition in the woods can often superinduce the atmosphere desired. There is nothing like getting back to nature to encourage a man to follow Nature's impulse to take a mate for himself.

 INTRODUCTION Part 2

Next to the peace and quiet of nature, the most encouraging atmosphere is the coziness and comfort of a home-of the ideal home…But it must not be thought that the girl living in a boarding house or hotel, the girl without a home in the proper sense of the word, is handicapped. In a secluded restaurant, where the lights are subdued, and where there are not too many people, she and he can dawdle and dream over a long- drawn-out luncheon, until the man feels as cozy and contented as he ever felt in his life.

Never go to a restaurant with him at the hours when it is most crowded; but always choose an hour when you can have more or less privacy. Choose a small one in preference to a large and bustling one, or choose one where you can have a nook or corner to yourselves. AVOID THE DAZZLINGLY WHITE RESTAURANTS, TILE GAY AND GLITTERING KIND, AND THE CABARETS. These don't suggest coziness and contentment; their atmosphere discourages all thought of home and marriage. If you can contrive it, choose one where the lighting is subdued, and where the entire effect is one of intimacy that promotes the tete-a-tete. Many girls are able to make a picnic luncheon out in the woods, in the park or on the river, just as cozy and comfortable. Draw the meal out as long as possible, and when it is ever, sit and dream and talk confidentially for a long time before rising. Give the man an opportunity to absorb the atmosphere and time enough to let it penetrate deeply. Hurry will never do.

Another method of making it easy to act is for the girl to appear sad and disconsolate, thus appealing to his pity and chivalry. This, the "beauty in distress" method, can be applied only when the man himself is in a mood of enthusiasm and hope.

Of course, it will not do for her to be sad when he is despondent. That will only double his gloom
and make action even more unlikely. And her sadness must not be about him or his prospects; she must be sad only on her own account. Before she attempts to act disconsolate, she must first see that he is in a mood of hope, enthusiasm, and certainty of success, a mood of confidence in a glorious future for himself. If he is not already in such a mood, she should attempt to put him into it before she resorts to being sad. And her despondence should appear to be caused principally because she has no such happy and enjoyable future as his to look forward to, because her lot is a lonely and dreary one in contrast to his, because a girl's opportunities are so infinitely inferior to a man's. When a man cares for her, when he has perhaps been holding back only because he has doubted his ability to make her happy, what is easier for him to do, under the circumstances, than to say "Never mind, little girl, if your future is dreary you can share mine?" Unless the girl, however, has inspired in him a conviction that he has a future, he is not going to ask her to share it. The "castle-in-the-air" method is practically am indispensable preface to a proposal. After this preface has been taken care of, however, it is the method of sadness, of wistfulness, in the girl that brings about the actual proposal in the majority of cases. EVERY GIRL, THEREFORE, WHO HOPES TO BRING A MAN TO THE ACTION STAGE, ABSOLUTELY MUST LEARN TO USE THIS METHOD.

BODY

When the man, however, fails to respond to the girl's thus making action easy for him, he is by no means a hopeless case. The girl can now proceed to the second of the three ways of getting action--making it hard for him not to act.

A good example of making it hard not to speak is that of Miss Innocent in the first chapter.

This is the "apology method" of stirring a man to action. The essence of the method is that the man
be maneuvered into such a position that he feels he has been a brute and must make amends, that a
perfunctory apology be then made to appear so inadequate that an elaborate explanation of his feelings toward the girl is required. If the man has a desire for the girl, and if the obstacles have been temporarily minimized, SUCH AN EXPLANATION USUALLY LEADS INTO A DECLARATION OF LOVE AND A PROPOSAL.

It is of course understood throughout this chapter that there is no use in trying any of the methods of
stirring a man to action unless it is fairly certain that he is ripe for action, that he is only hesitating because of inward doubts and outward obstacles. Getting action is the last of the five steps of winning a man-- attention, interest, desire, judgment, and action. To attempt to make it the second step, or the third, or the fourth, is futile. If the man fails to respond to the apology method, the girl can usually take it for granted that he is not ripe for action. She must then devote her thoughts for a month or two to increasing his desire or getting the obstacles out of the way.

There is another method of making it hard not to act “the beauty in distress method” so popular with
novelists. The heroine is the center of so much misfortune and trouble that the man is forced, willy nilly, to come to her rescue…In these cases, if the girl will tactfully let the man know of her distress, it is exceedingly hard for him to refrain from comforting her, from trying to make it easy for her, from heroically and chivalrously relieving her of her burdens and taking them upon himself. If he really desires the girl, if he is truly ripe for action, then he can do little else, under these circumstances, except to ask for the privilege and the right, as her husband, to protect and take care of her.

A modification is the "dilemma and advice process." Here the girl lets the man know that she is in a
dilemma, that she doesn't know what to do, and comes to him for advice and help. Now when a man has any secret hopes of his own about her future, it is rather difficult for him to give her advice as to what to do without telling her what those hopes are. It is doubly difficult if he must advise her in a course of action that would exclude him to a certain extent from her life, when it is a case of give her up or speak out.

A very wealthy girl was once driven to distraction by an upstanding young man who absolutely idolized her, but who could never bring himself to speak out. This wealthy girl had several other suitors, but she wanted this particular young man. She knew what was holding him back. Though he was an enterprising and rising young man earning a respectable income, he had no wealth but his own earning ability and he was too proud to risk the appearance of being a fortune hunter. Being sure of the situation which confronted her, the girl felt justified in acting more boldly than a girl in a different situation would dare to act. One evening, when circumstances were propitious, she told him, "Joe, I want your advice on a very personal matter. We have known each other for a long time and I feel that I can trust you more than I can others." She then proceeded to tell him that she was in a dilemma, that she just couldn't decide between two of her other suitors; that they were both fine men, etc. She wanted to know, however, if Joe knew anything about either that would help in her decision. You can imagine how uncomfortable this made Joe; how horrified he was at the prospect of her marrying anyone when she didn't know her own mind; how reluctant he was, when pressed, to recommend either one suitor or the other. It seemed such a pity for her to marry anyone when she seemed so uncertain of her heart, that Joe couldn't help telling her THAT IN HIS OPINION SHE OUGHTN'T TO MARRY EITHER; THAT, INDEED, HE HAD HOPED SOME DAY TO MARRY HER HIMSELF, and that, if she would only be willing to wait for him a little while and give him a chance to make a mark in the world, he felt sure he would prove worthy of being her husband.

CONCLUSION

We now come to the third principle of getting action--making the necessity for it appear urgent and necessary. This principle has already been touched upon. In the case of Johnny and Innocent, for example the misunderstanding made it urgent that Johnny do something to put his relationship to Innocent on a satisfactory basis again… Confronted with such an alternative, the average man, if he is genuinely ripe for action, cannot choose but make it now. IF HE IS NOT RIPE FOR ACTION, NATURALLY, NO ATTEMPT OUGHT TO BE MADE TO HURRY MATTERS.

There are times, for example, when a girl must leave the city or the town, whether she will or no. Her family must move. She cannot resort to the dilemma and advice method, because, regardless of what the man might advise, she must leave anyway. Now if the girl will divulge the news of her approaching departure and will divulge it in a romantic setting when action is easy, she can very easily make it appear that if the man is ever going to speak out, now is the time. Similarly when the man is confronted with the necessity of leaving.

There are also times when it is advisable for the girl to use another man to make the man believe that immediate action is highly necessary. She may play upon the man's jealousy to make him speak out in order to discomfit a rival. If she finds that the man particularly dislikes one of her acquaintances, that acquaintance is just the one in whom she should affect an interest if she desires to stir her man into action… Thus one of the easiest methods of making it appear highly urgent and exceptionally necessary for the suitor to act, is to affect an interest in another man, especially when it has first been ascertained that the other man is especially detestable to him. The girl desiring to use this method of impelling a man to action should first ascertain which of her men acquaintances is particularly obnoxious to her suitor, and then intimate that this obnoxious individual is becoming very interesting to her. Her pretended interest will sooner or later tantalize him into doing something about the matter--it may even force him to speak out before he is quite prepared. Men, indeed, are very seldom wholly prepared for a proposal.

By some method or other, whether one of those described in this chapter or one of her own devising, she must make it easy for the man to act. When this is not sufficient, she must study out some way that will make it hard for him not to act, or she must place herself in such a light that action if the man cares for her, appears both urgent and necessary.

HW ASSIGNMENT 17 for Singles

CHAPTER XVII. Inspiring the Proposal

Due Thursday midnight, Oct. 25, 2009. Please email me the answers to 1Femmy@gmail.com. Thank you. 

1.     List the 3 ways to create action when the obstacles are temporarily eclipsed. Memorize.

2.     Name 2 things to avoid in creating a romantic situation.

3.     How can you create a romantic situation in the winter? Summer?

4.     Explain the best way to dine out.

5.     Explain the process on when and how to be “blue”.

6.     What is the “apology method”?

7.     If the apology method, or any other method doesn’t work, what is the cause and the solution?

8.     Explain the “dilemma and advice process”.

9.     Explain the method to use when the obstacle is her higher income.

10.                        What are the two examples used when urgent and necessary action was desired.

 HW ASSIGNMENT 17 for Wives taken from the INTRODUCTION only.

1.     Name 2 things to avoid in creating a romantic situation.

2.     How can you create a romantic situation in the winter? Summer?

3.     List some ways a city wife can help create a romantic setting.