 | Saratoga in 1901 |  |
FLIRTING
“Fourthly,—I added this
paragraph by special request of
the young ladies.
Flirting is a word which
seems to have two meanings.
One meaning is that a young
gentleman or young lady makes
himself or herself agreeable to
the opposite sex, that they try
so to do, and that they succeed.
When we call a young
lady a flirt, in that sense it is
a fine compliment; hence, about the first remark a swell young
fellow makes now-a-days to a
young lady is some such homily
as this:—
“Oh, I hear, Miss Brown, that
you are an awful flirt!”
He simply means that Miss
Brown has attractive ways.
The second meaning to the
word flirt is freighted with something
more serious. It means that
a young gentleman or young lady
will, knowingly, trifle with the most
sacred feelings and passions of
the human heart, that by practicing
a sort of disgraceful confidence
game they will win the
honest love of another, and then
act, and should be punished like any other confidence game,
or swindling in ordinary business transactions. No real gentleman
or lady would knowingly commit
such a crime. Many young
ladies and gentlemen have the reputation
of flirting, when in fact they
are only trying to please everybody.
This is a virtue. “Do to others as
ye would that they should do to
you,” is the golden rule of politeness
as well as morality.
Lord Chesterfield,
with all his
wit, never laid down
so good a
rule for politeness
as
this.
So when any one
calls you a
flirt, before
you smile
or make answer, ask them which
kind of flirt they mean—the polite
or the wicked?
WHEN FRED'S A FLIRT.
Pshaw! that horrid—that dreadful Fred Day,
Up the street he walked by my side,
Till I thought that he'd never go 'way.
I knew that our ride was at four,
Just the time when the beaux are all out;
But he chattered—the horrible bore!—
Dear knows what he did talk about.
Well, somehow or other I couldn't;
He's one of the swell beaux, you know,
It I'd said go, I know now he wouldn't.
Yes, “handsome!” and sweet as a doll,
And he dances and flirts so divine
That you feel as if clasped by Apol—
O dear Kate, don't I wish he were mine!
Yes, first I meet Fred up at Rye;
`Twas a dance, a bouquet and a walk;
The wretch took my hand with a sigh,
But mamma came and broke up the talk.
O Kate, what a sweet laundalet!
(There is Fred walking over the street;
You dear scamp—you love of a pet!)
Seats easy—lined with drab, and so neat.
James in drab, too—dressed à propos;
What a love of a hat you do wear!
Strings negative drab, and just too
Lovely as we wear our back hair.
Take a peep at my braids, do you see
How classic? on the top of my head,
Just like the Venus of Milo—
Who can that be walking with Fred?
“Nellie M—, of West Thirty-third?”
O the wretch—the flirt! how he can!
For last night he gave me his word
Not to speak to the guy—O the man!
Why, at Richfield, last summer, they walked,
She on his arm; ate lunch on the grass;
And Fred took her hand as they talked—
Yes, I saw through my opera glass.
He's never said love to me, Kate,
How I'd frown him down quick at the word;
He's a flirt when he walks with N—, Kate—
With Nellie M—, of West Thirty-third!
| Saratoga in 1901 | |