Cupid the Surgeon

How did gentlemen seduce women in the Victorian age? Many used this humorous book (selection below). The book is fun to read and has many hand drawn illustrations, about the stages of seduction. The book advises men to not hesitate but to seduce at the moment of greatest weakness. See below* Selection: "...She [the desired lady] also knows her defects as well as a horse-trader who is trying to dispose of a nag with spavin, so guard yourself again comparing the lady's ear to a pearly pink sea shell if it is oversized and lies not flatly against the side of her head, for she has wept hours over this blemish. " ... She has heard all about lips like cherries, cheeks like peaches, and a throat like a swan's -- and bless you, she knows there are no feathers growing on her neck, no any resemblance between her face and a fruit stand, she she call your adulation rubbish and you a silly ass..." . * lAfter wonderful flattery] "See her blush! You have picked the lock. Now rush in with abandon and kick over the chairs and tables. Let there be no bounds to the extravagance of your ardor, for like a house of cards, her sense of discrimination collapsed after "coup de maitre." ... Tell her your an amateur painter and would like her to poise for the head; then pretend you are slightly embarrassed and whisper with regret, "What a loss art sustains when Mrs. Grundy prevents such a Venus from posing without such stupid accessories as diaphanous draperies and fig foliage."