by Elsie Lincoln Benedict
Available in 98 free installments
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¶ Nevertheless, many a man prefers this creature of "a million moods" to the staid and sedate girl of other types. So the Thoracic girl seldom lacks for attention. She does not have as many intimate friends as the fat girl, for she is less comforting, and comfort is one of the first requisites of friendship. But she has a longer line of beaux dancing attendance upon her, sending her flowers, candy and messages.
¶ Another reason why the Thoracic girl has more attention from men is that she is the most smartly-gowned of all the types. The new, the extreme, the "very latest" in women's clothes are first seen on the Thoracic girl. She is the type men call "stunning."
Men prefer companions who appear well?whom other men admire. The Thoracic woman demands the same of the men she goes about with, and for these two reasons many Thoracics marry those in whom their own type predominates.
¶ Make a note of the "dashing widows," you have known?those who were called "the merry widows"?and you will recall a large Thoracic element in each.
For this type of woman, unlike the home-keeping Alimentive, enjoys being a widow and remains one. She usually has many chances to remarry but her changeable, gaiety-loving nature revels in the freedom, sophistication and distinction of widowhood.
The appearance of endless youth given by her alive, responsive personality deceives the most discerning as to her age. The woman of fifty who enthralls the youths of twenty-five is usually of the Thoracic type.
¶ This woman refuses to grow old, just as the Alimentive refuses to grow up. She clings to her beauty as does no other type. She it is who self-sacrificingly starves herself to retain her slenderness, who massages and exercises and "cold-creams" herself hours a day before the shrine of Eternal Youth. Her high color, "all her own," is a decided asset in this direction.
This woman devotes as much attention to her grooming at sixty as the Alimentive does at twenty. For this reason you may any day see two women of forty together, one an Alimentive and the other a Thoracic?and take the plump one to be several or many years older than the florid one.
¶ Thoracic men and women care more about "the bright lights" than other types. The Alimentive likes what he calls "a good time"?with fun and plenty of "refreshments"?but the Thoracic's idea of a good time usually includes a touch of "high life."
This all comes from his love of thrill and novelty and is innocent enough. But it leads to misunderstandings and broken homes unless the Thoracic marries the right type of person.
¶ The Osseous, for instance, has nothing in his consciousness by which to understand the desire for excitement which is so strong in the Thoracic. We have all known good wives and loving mothers whose marital happiness was destroyed because they could not compel themselves to lead the drab existence laid out for them by their bony, stony husbands. In many cases the wife, who only wanted a little innocent fun, was less to blame than her unbending spouse.
¶ One day several years ago we drove up to a lonely farmhouse in Montana just as a tragedy was enacted. The mother was being taken to the state asylum for the insane. The seven little children watched the strange performance, unable to understand what had happened. The father, a tall, raw-boned, angular man was almost as mystified as the children.
"Crazy?" he said, "I don't believe it. Say, what did she have to go crazy about? She hasn't seen anything to excite her. Why, she's not been off this farm for twenty years!"
