Most women are much more influenced by strength in a man than by
anything which can reasonably be called beauty. Actually and
metaphorically every woman would rather be roughly carried off her feet
by something she cannot resist than be abjectly worshipped and
flattered; yet worship and flattery, though second-best, are much
better than the terribly superior and instructive affection which the
born prig bestows upon his idol with the air of granting a favour on
moral grounds.
Men, on the other hand, detest being carried away, almost as much as
being led. The woman who lets a man guess that she is trying to
influence him is lost, and generally forfeits for ever any real
influence she may have had. The only sort of cleverness which is
distinctly womanly is that which leads a man to do with energy,
enthusiasm and devotion the very thing which he has always assured
everybody that he will not think of doing. The old-fashioned way of
making a pig go to market is to pull his tail steadily in the opposite
direction. If you do that, nothing can save him from his fate; for he
will drag you off your feet in his effort to do what he does not want
to do at all; and there is more 'psychology' in that plain fact than in
volumes of subtle analysis.