The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1869-10-11

1t is one of the oldest points of difference
between man and woman that woman has no
first love- The long alphabet OF her atfec-
tions is without any distinct end or begin
ming; she mounts by insensible sradaiions
IRON dolls aud kittens and pet brothers to the
zenith OF passion, to descend by the same in
sensible gradations from the zenith of pas
sion through pet brothers to tabby cats
There is no such event as a first kiss forms in
a BOYS lite to mark for woman the transition
from girlhood to the sudden maturity of pas
sion she has been kissing aud purring and
fondllng and petting from her cradle, and she
will pet and tondle and purr aud kiss to her
grave. Love, in the technical sense OF the
word, is with her little more than an intensi-
iying other ordinary lite. There is no new
picture, but the colors are for the while a
little heightened and the tone raised. Pres
entlv the vividness vi color will fade again,
and the cool grays lower the tone, and the
passion of lie will have died away. But
there will be no definite moment at which
one could fairly say that love came or went
A girl who is not whispering in q lovers ear
will always say frankly enough that she new
er knew what it was not to be in love. There
is one obvious deduction which she iorsets TO
draw, that there never can be time when
she can know what it is to be in love. Here
and there, of course, a woman may be colder,
or later in development, or more self-concious
and may divide by mole risidly marked lines
the phases of her lite. But even then, II she
be a woman at all, she can have no first love.
Feeling with woman has no past, as II has no
future. Every phase OF her lie begins with
an act of oblivion. Every love is first love.
81 never loved any one before" is said and
said truly, to a dozen loving ears in success
sion. ''The first thing should like to meet
with in Paradise said Lady Wortley Mon
tagu, "Would be the river Lethe, The stream
OF Forgellulness." But woman finds little
riyulet OF Lethe at every stage of her hearts
career. III she remembers the past at all, 1t Is
to offer it up as burnt sacrifice TO the delly
Of the present. When Cleopatra talked aoout
Caesar to Mark Anthony, she passeui -. ~
doubt, her finger, through ner lone .'ar ,Iofed
| aud wondered how she could hilss s ~ nict,tor
| on such bald-pated IeiloS ';,lr 40 10. O,toyiusl
| Had she succeeded In chaIlui,e hor in,
~ ,,,c,,la ba 20 wondered equally at ner IN
si,o ~, g.. sucb a neer-do well as AhtoiV.
| iatua'ioh :. ~ : no wonder that womans frst
Anu anu 50 it - = She realizes it at all, goes down
| ~; -, .I,,tS' General wreck oil the past. but IN
,,ioas lie it is a revolution. III IS IN tact the
MAJ ll'n ,bino that makes him man. The world
of bovnood is strictly a world OF boys. Sisters,
consins, aunts, mothers, are mixed up in the
General crowd OF baibalians that stand with
out the playg ound. N ...r 4..d .I ..
There are few warmer or more poetic al
| factions than the chivalrous friendship OF
scnool-feloas; there Is no truer or more gen
uine worship than a boy worship OF the hero
OF the scrimmage or the cricket held. 1t is a
fine world in itseli, but il is "a wonderfully
narrow and restricted world. Not girl may
peep over the palmgs. Girls can't jump or
lao out. or swarm u. a tree, they have moth
| inw TO ak about as boys talk ;thes nevef heard
of that glerio wipa OF Old Browa's; the {
awful Mills sops, they CRY and "lell mamma,
they are afraid Of g,verness and OF COW
IL is impossible TO conceive creature more