Notes On A Gentle And Delicate Art

THIS, as its name suggests, is an intelligent survey of the principles and practice of seduction. Taking up scientifically a phase of amour that is familiar to most people above the fladging stage, Miss Hahn succeeds in outlining the popular methods of persuasion and in appending to them trenchant comments. Her attitude is impersonal and amoral. The result is a neat little book that is exquisitely humorous. No home, we venture to advise, should be without a copy.

Miss Hahn is delicately regretful that so little has been done in drawing up the rules of the game of seduction. This art should occupy, and in some cases does occupy, a third of the average male's time. In view of this fact, it is, as the lady points out, criminal negligence to keep the mass of the public uninformed on the subject, bungling about year after year, experimenting along lines that are bound to end in frustration and nervous disappointment. With a tact that the present generation does not deserve; Miss Hahn starts out on the long task of explanation and illustration. The terrifying suspicion grows upon one as she pro-Broadway entrepreneur masquerading under a feminine nom de plume, or, b) a former Hollywood houri with a degree of experience it is inconvenient even to imagine.

There is a breadth of view in this beginner's handbook that is breath-taking. Among the methods of seduction that are listed, the familiar "Feel My Muscle" approach, the plaintive. "An Ugly Old Thing Like Me" style, and the moss-backed "Everybody Does It" argument illustrate sufficient diversity to command the tyro's respect. The author handles these three outline cases with a facile calm surpassing the pure human. In returning the book to one's desk after the three hours it takes to read it from cover to cover, the first reaction should be a feeling of gratitude to Miss Hahn. She has removed the false whiskers from a topic of major interest, and revealed it glittering and elegant, a general mode, no less. We are not maintaining, however, that there won't be some who will feel ethically unbuttoned by this scientific document, some who will consider it too elementary, and a few who will be eighteen-ninety, relegating it hastily to the Nokol fireplace. But the tract will continue to speak firmly for itself The more who read it, certainly the better.