The Highland weekly news. [volume] (Hillsborough [Hillsboro], Highland County, Ohio) 1853-1886, 1873-12-11
An Open Letter TO Any Girl
Who Claims 1t.

They tell me you are what the
world calls a firt; that all the little
attractions which nature has given
you have been subordinated to base
uses, and you have openly boasted of
the conquests you have made through
the power of coquetry. Pause, I beg
of you; it is not yet too late; you can
not know whittier this tendency is
leading you, or you would never have
entered the path. There are many
reasons why you should pause. The
fact that you are SO debasing your
womanhood proves conclusively that
you could have never have known the
power of passion that has many
times made angels of demons. Oh!
you blush. tits well; it gives hopes
for the future; it tells that you are
not dead to reason and shame. Shall
l tell you why you are on the brink
of terrible danger? Does not your
own heart tell you that some time, as
there enters into the heart of every
man and every woman, sooner or
later, love stronger than death and
true as truth, so it must come to you,
and in your soul of souls you must
feel that the only man worthy of
the admiration and love of any woman
is one that would not for an in
slant trife with the affections of an
other? Do you think the true man
whom you could honor IS husband
would care to take to his embrace
wife whose lips had been sullied
by careless and promiscuous contact
with any who had chanced to be the
plaything of the hour? You may
plead, in extenuation of your fault, that
you were engaged to those whose ca
resses you permitted, but, in the sew
eral instances referred to, discovered
before it was too late that you had
mistaken passing fancy for q life
long affection. It is no excuse at all. |
Indeed, it proves you weaker than be-
fore. You have no right to promise
yourself in marriage to man whom
you are not sure you can love until
death. Then, when you so far forget
your womanly dignity as to snap at
any chance bait that may be offered,
to find out later that you are mistak-
en-, you must not wonder that your
name is banded carelessly about |
among your masculine acquaintances,
and the better kind of men begin to
shun you.
There is a difference, my young
friend, between prudishness and wo-
manly self respect, and you will al
ways find that any man, high or low,
pure in thought or thoroughly de-
based, will not forget the Difference
due to true woman. You ought to
know instinctively that familiarity is
no evidence of manly regard, and the
profered caress too often springs from
a motive so base that 1 need not
name it. Guard yourself, then, that,
when the time does come in which
you can truly say to any man, that he
is more to you than all else, you will
have no reluctance to lay before him
the history of your past life, unspot-
ted by the breath Of suspicion, un-
tarnished by practices not open to
the world; and, when the time does
come, as you would have true SYM
pathy and happiness in the future,
give each other your confidence re-
garding the past; let there be no
sealed pages, no forgotten details,
VIII ose ghostly presence will haunt
you ever after, and, if discovered,
cast shadow between you and him
who trusted you.