The Charleston daily news. [volume] (Charleston, S.C.) 1865-1873, 1869-10-27


4 vest amount Of poetry has always been zen
thrown around that special time OF womans
life when, e.sN
Standing with reluctant feet,
Where the brook and river meet,
she Is no longer child, and yet no. quite
woman-that transition time between es1o, the
in England express by the term, among others,
OF Sweet Seventeen. Without mcRqing 70 be
sentimental, or to envelop things In golden
Where H to be found in fact. We cannot deny the
peculiar charm which belongs to girl of this
age If slle Is at all nice, and neither pert nor
interests ,ls, but what she Will be for this Is
the time when the character Is settling into Its
permanent form, 81 that the great thought OF
turn out into what kind Of woman will the
girl develop? and what kind Of life will she
make for herself9 Certainly Sweet Seventeen
may be most unlovely creature, and In fact
having lost the innocence and obedience
of childhood, and having gained nothing
yet Of the tact and grace Of woman
hood, a creature whose ohones and nd thoughts @ S
brought out, and have her fling of flirting and
fine dresses with the rest. Or she may be only
gauchc and giggling school girl, with m mind n,
trigues and scandals OF the dormitory and the
playground; a girl who scampB her lessons and
cheats her masters; whose highest efforts OF
intellect arc shown In the clcverness with
which she can break the rules OF the establish
ment without being found out; who thinks
talking at forbidden times, peeplng through
forbidden windows, giving silly nicknames to
silly secrets with less truth than ingenuity In
them, the greatest fun imaginable and all the
greater because Of the spice Of rebellion anti
perversity with which II is dashed. Or she
may be mere tomboy regrettng her sex and
despising It's restraints; cultivatlng schoolboy
slang and ,aping schoolboy habits; ridiculing
her sisters, and dIsliked by her companions,
while thinking girlhood q bore and woman
hood mistake In exact proportion to its femi-
nality. Or she may be n budding miss, shy
! and awkward, with no harm in her and as lit
tie good-a mere sketch Of agirl, without Q
30 much as Indicated. Sometimes She Is awk-
ward in another way, being studlous and pre-
occupied, when she passes for odd and origin
wholly misunderstood by her own young
world; and sometimes she has q cynical con-
exempt for men and beauty and pleasure and
y dress, when she will make herself ridiculous
by her revolt against all the canons Of good
taste and conventionallty. But after her debut
In tattered garments Of severe colors and un-
calmly cut, She, Will probably end her days as
frantic fashionable, the salvation Of whose soul
depends on the faultless propriety Of her ward
robe. The cccentriclties Of Sweet Seventeen
not uniYequently revenge themselves by an
though there are enough and to spare of girls
sDaccording to all these patterns, the Sweet
Seventeen Of ones affections is none of them.
And yet she Is not always the same, but has
(which give her variety Of charm and beauty.
y The best and loyeliest thing about: Sweet
Seventeen is her sense Of duty-for the most
part q new sense; She no longer needs to
be told what to do; she has not to De kept
to her tasks by the fear Of authority or the
submissive grace OF obedience; but ofr her
own free viii, because understanding that
Thing hsa than asey sew se As doe
what she does not like 70 do, and cheer
fully gives up what, she desires without
before her, mind some favorite heroine in 9
girls novel, who goes through much painful
discipline and comes out all the brighter for
It in the end; andshe makes noble resolves Of
living as worthily as her model. She comforts
her soul, too, with passages from i 'Iongfeliow
and Tennyson and the "Christian Year" and
learns long extracts rom ":ETa1scliae" and the
!..Idyls;' poetry having an almost magical ipan:
sermons she listens to so devontly and tries
patiently to understand. For the first time
ishe wakes to a dim sense Of her own In:
has LIE or her own apart from, and extrahe-
GUS to, her more family membership. She ia
not only. the sister or the daughter living with
but she is also herself with a future Of her
own not to be shared with them-not to be
touched by them. And she begins to ahave
vague dreams Of this future and .its hero
were Of the young prince coming oyer the sea
In golden boat to find the princess'in tower
.of brass waiting for him. Quite impersonal,
and with Q hero only In the clouds, yet never
theless these dreams are suggested by, the
special circumstances Of her life, by her favor
lite books, or the style Of society In which she
has been placed. The young prince is either
abea,itifnl and hlgh-souled olergyman-lnot
unlike the young vicar or the new curate, but
Infinitely more -beautIful-an apostle In the
Standing COLLAR and singl 7hreasted coat of the
nineteenth century; or he is an artist
In velvet blouse and with flowing hair, nv-
imagine; or he is gallant sailor, with blue
eyes and aIoose neck-tlc, lookihg.up to. heaven
In q gale, and thinking Of his mother and SIS
ters mt home, and Of the one still more be-
loved, when he certainly ought to be thinking
of tarry ropes and coarse sailclOth; or he is a
magnificent young officer heading his men at a
charge, and looking supremcly well got up
ana handsome. This is the kind OF .titiur SHE
dreams Of when she dreams OF oil, which is not
oftcn The reality of hcr mature life is per-
mans msnt solid country squire, or prosalc city
nance III his compositions; while her own life,
which was to be such q lovely poem of grace
nli usefulness and heroic beauty, sinks into the
ProsaiG sh routine OF o,,sskeeplng and society
and fainter as the weight of time and fact
grows heavier. :.
Married men are all sacred to- Sweet Seven
Teen Teen when nT , she IL good girl 30 are engagcd
nothing could Induce her to marry either a
W,dower or one who had been already cngag-
Gu, ap rs ndI no'mnR eould induce her to marry any
nose or sandy whiskcrs. Sweet Seventeen
hs i,,.s IN general the most profound aversion to
boya TO he sure she rffhy have isr favorites-O
very few and very seldom; but she ,mostly
LINKS lhem stupid Or c0ncelted, and rcsents
lnilarunlly either thelr awkward attentions to
hersnift or their assumptions OF superiority.
An abnorinaliy clever bOy.-.thc Poetaf ,niircofe
or Or George stephensGn Of his gcnerajIon-is
ncr detestation, hcca!fsc he Is odd md unlike
every one else, and the one that slle likes heat
among them is tho school hero. who Is firs. II,
ane ome SPOTS @ and takes all the prizes, and who
and never famous. For her several broti,crs
sie has range Of entirely different feel
ing lmgs. her younger schoolboy' BROTH
crs She regards as tho torlients of her
existence, whose unkcmpt hair. dirty
Doots, and rude manners are her special eros
ses, 70 be borne with patience, tempered by
an active endeayor after reform. But tho
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