Page:Sexology.djvu/80

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themselves, but a strongly passionate woman may well-nigh ruin a man of feebler sexual organization than her own, and so it is important that the woman also should be familiarized with the "physiology of matrimony," sufficiently, at least, to refrain from too exacting or frequent demands. Whatever may be her feelings, she should always remember that delicacy, as well as prudence and common sense, require her to await the advances of her companion before she manifests her willingness for his approaches. If, on the one hand, he is bound to respect her temperamental conditions, she, on her part, is equally bound to preserve toward him such an amount of womanly reserve and continence as shall prove, at the same time, her most alluring attribute, as well as her most successful guarantee of continued conjugal happiness. Something should always be held in reserve, no less of her capacity for bestowing and receiving enjoyment, than of her personal and peculiar charms. The imagination should always be left to occupy itself in depicting those treasures which it has enjoyed but never beheld; and thus the husband will remain the lover, and courtship continue until death do them part. Drapery but enhances the estimation in which men hold the female attractions of person, and the rustle of a woman's garment is more potent to charm them than the lavish exposure of the proportions of a Venus.

"These violent delights have violent ends,
And in their triumph die; like fire and powder,
Which, as they kiss, consume : the sweetest honey
Is loathsome in his own deliciousness.
And in the taste confounds the appetite:
Therefore, love moderately; long love doth so;
Too swift arrives as tardy as too slow."