Columbia gazette and the southern mines advertiser. [volume] (Columbia, Tuolumne County, Calif.) 1855-1858, 1858-05-27

Womanisms by a Frenchman.
The following truths and fancies con-
corning that deeply interesting subject
to all mankind, Women, are selected
from works of the French writer Al
phonse Karr, and principally from his
book called Les Femmes:
WOMEN NEVER YOUNG.
It is not unusual to see little boys,
tina, is to say children, who one day
will become men. They have tastes
and pleasures, peculiar to them of boys.
Bnt in all of my life have never seen
more than one or two little girls little
girls are women only smaller than other
women, but still most decidedly women.
At the age of six, they think of pleas
ing, and they are ready for anything
Watch them in their games apparently
the most innocent, they always imagine
they are at the theater, and every now
and then they send their little eyes slow
ly round to judge Of their success. A
little girl not older than six has already
the melancholy air and the dreamy look
of . girl of sixteen; this does not mean
to say that she is either dreamy or mel
ancholy, and more than that the same
appearance will prove that she is SO
when she will be at the age of sixteen !;
no, it is only an air that she has chosen
in the same way that she chooses rib
bon, because it becomes her. Stop any
day in the Tuilleries, and study these
pretended children at their games
They are not children who are playing
to amuse themselves, they are little &C.
tresses, who are playing part to be ad-
mired Listen how the little dressed
up dolls talk for the benefit Of the spec
tators-see how happy they ere to be
noticed, and observe with what sidelong
glanccs they repay any little admiration
they receive!
From the age of
six, woman has nothing to gain, ex-
cepting ip height and size. But if wo-
men are never young, then, as a COM
peAsations tfeyr are never old
WOMEN NE-ER OLD.
What is an old woman At what
age does woman become old ? 1 have
questioned many women, old and young,
upon this subject, and 1 have arrived at
the conviction that they knew no more
than | do. Listen
to woman at the age of twenty talking
about old women. She does not speak
Of them as traveller who is about to
start on long journey speaks of those
who have arrived at the end of it; she
does not speak of them as if they we're
human beings to whom she must one
day bear some sort of resemblance her.
self; no, it would seem that they wore
two species of women perfectly distinct
like the white woman and the black wo-
man, and that the woman of the age of
twenty who is speaking to you belongs
the young species in the same way that
she belongs to the white species. Moth
ing is more common than to hear a wo-
man who is 10 longer young say, with
the greatest contempt, Of woman Of
her own age, "She's an old woman ~
A woman of the age of twenty calls all
the women who are of the age OF thirty
years old, and a woman Of thirty is scan
dalized to see drawing-room crowded
with nothing but women of forty, whilst
the latter say, "When I be fifty, like
Mrs So and SO, I shall give up going in
to society, and certainly shall not wear
flowers in my hair 1.-The women of
fifty in their turn chatter freely about
the giddiness and impudence of women
who only number few years less than
themselves.
A woman is never old so long as she
can inspire feeling Of love. Besides,
what is it to be old . It surely does
not consist in having spent a certain
number Of years out Of the mysterious
number which has been allotted to each
of us. To be old is lin my opinion) no
longer to possess either beauty of charm.
If a woman preserves up to the age of
hundred all the attractions of her youth,
she would even then be younger than the
woman Of twenty who had lost them ALL
n - n l prefer any day an old
woman who is young, to a young wo-
man who is old.
woMEN's PASSION FOR NEW DRESSES.
In the life of woman every event,
every alliance, every friendship, is the
pretext for new dress. A friend gives
a ball-a new dress; she marries-a
new dress /; it is her birthday new
dress; her husband dies-a new dress ;;
she goes to court-a new dress her
children are confrmed-more new dres-
ses, and so on to the last new dress she
puts on at her death. The life of a
woman is series of dresses, and her
biography might be written from them.