Delaware State journal and statesman., 1867-09-13
From the Saturday Review
FOOLISH VIRGINS.

The heroines of the London season-the
dllies, we mean, who have been entered for
the great matrimonial stakes, and have been
mentioned in the betting-have by this time
exchanged the fast pleasures of the town for
the vapid pastimes of the country. We do
not, of course, concern ourselves with those
poor simple girls who only repeat the lives
and mo'als of old-iashloned English homes,
and who are too respectable and too modest
to be pointed at as girls of the season. We
speak of the fast sisterhood only. After
Three months of egregious dissipation they
enter duly upon the next stage of their regu-
Jar yearly alterations. Three months of
headlong folly are succeeded by three months
Of deadly ennui Action and reaction are
always equal, The pains and weariness Of
moral crapulousness arise in nice proportion
to the passion of the debauch. 1t is dis
NAL hour when we look on the withered
leaves of last nights garland. The lovely
and unloyely beings who are now living de-
pressed days far from Belgravia and the
Row have, it IS true, but joyless orgies TO
look back upon. Their pleasures gave but
pnchbeck ioviality after all, were but a thin
lacker spread over mercenary cares and
heaIt-aching iealousies, the jealousies
Of passion, but the nipping vulgar vegation
with which shopkeeper trembles lest a
customer should go to his rival over the way
still there was excitement,- excitement
Of outdoing rival in shamelessness of ap-
parel, in reckless abandonment of manner,
in the unblushing tolerance of impudent
speech, in all the other elements of ignoble
Gasino-emulaton Above all, there was the
tickling excitement OF knowing that all this
Tasin some sort clandestine; that, ostensibly
aud on the surface, things looked as If they
were all exhibiting human nature at it's sta
'eliest most dignifed, and most refined pitch
The consciousness that the thin surface onll
eOnceals some of the worst elements of char
acler in full force and activity must give
pleasantly singing sensation to an acutel
cynical woman. However, this is all owe
Tor time. For time the half-dresse
young M@nads of the season will be foun
clothed and in their rights minds. An
what sort OF a right mind is ilP We kno'
the kind of preparation which they hay
had for the business of the season. for fir
ing, misunderstanding, waltzing, dressing
asto escape the regulations of the polio
and the rest. For this their training III
been perfect. But wise men agree tn
education should comprehend training f
all parts of life equallY,-for pleasure nj
less than for business, for hours of relax
lion as well as for hours OF strain and pre-
sure, for leisure just as much as for acti
occupation. Education is supposed to al
US at every point. Nobody in this wol
was ever perfectly educated. Everybo
has at least one side on which he is wea
one quarter where temptations are eth
not irresistible, or else are not recogniz
asalluring to what is wrong. But we
Know that training, though never perfe
can make the difference between decen
Eght and happy life and bad, corrupt hi
\ Ale, or no life. What does training do
The nimble-fopted young beauties of
{ London ball-room9 1t makes them nimb
looted, We admit. And what elseH
The root-idea OF the training of girls
4 Tue uppermost class in this country is r
maps the most absolutely shameless t
ever existed anywhere out of Circassia
georgia, II puts clean out of sight the
lion that women are rational beings as v
as asanimals, or that they are destined Ia
lAe companions of men, who are, or ou
10 be, also something more than amin
Htakes the mind into account only as
occasionally useful accident of body.
mind ought to bo developed little, and
such way as to make the body more plqu
@d attractive. Like the candle insid