The Morristown gazette. [volume] (Morristown, Tenn.) 1867-1920, 1876-08-23
The Morristown Gazette.
WEDNESDAY, AUG. %. 1876.
NIiseries of Childhood.


One Of the greatest of the petttes
miseres of childhood arises from
dress. A boy suffers dreadfully if
his clothes are OF peculiar cut or a
shade finer than his fellows. have
known a boy made miserable be-
cause he was compelled to wear a
collar of a peculiar and picturesque
cut and one of my gIoomiest pc
RODS of modification hangs round a
sash that was required to wear,
which was considered unreasonabIy
broad. The undying laughter of a
scornful schoolmate still rings in my
ears. When came home and com
planned Of it, was made to wear it,
to show me that / must be indiffer-
ent to ridicule AS if a child of
seven could conquer and kill that
emotion g The decision was very
unwise, for it simply caused me to
suffer, and took my mind from
greater and better things. Had the
sash been removed. Ishould have
forgotten all about it; as it is, it has
become the shirt of Nessus, and
clings tightly to me through life.
A lady told me, few years ago,
that she felt that she had made a ia
tai mistake in not allowing her
daughter when little girl to have
hoop-skirt /; all the other children had
them at the dancing-school, and
looked, as she thought. ridiculously
like bailet-girls. so she sent her child
in among them in a lanky robe,
which made her look very unlike
them. The child was thus render
ed Conspicuous and unhappy. She
wept. and implored, and begged to
stay at home, but was made by her
strong-minded parent to 90 and en-
dure. After she had greatly suffer
ed by this process. her mother dis
covered her mistake, and found that
the subject of dress was hereafter to
be her daughters one subject Of
thought and interest, while certain
bitterness had crept in, to the great
injury Of an originally amiable char
acter.
There is danger always, in thus
asking Of our children a virtue too
great for their eyes, that we create
the very vice that we seek to cure.
If children are dressed like their
fellows, costume assumes its proper
subordinate position. 1T is the
skin of the part" said a famous trag.
edian and it should be like the
skin, fighting, and not otherwise.
If that lady who denied her little
daughter the hoop-skirt had been
asked herself to 60 down Broadway
in the Bloomer costume, she would |
have rebelled decidedly and yet she
demanded Of her little daughter a !
courage ten times as great, and in
hicted a suffering UNNECESSARILY
greater.
For children can suffer. There is
an intensity about it; like their APP
petites, it has not been dulled by
repetition. One of the few privil-
eyes of growing old is, that we can
not suffer SO keenly. We know
from repeated blows that time will
cure us. We get not to care-but
Oh ! the strength of youthful grief!
- ASsS ShOA hAOAS FAbclIIIJ III HAS HOW |
1rotean its shapes l am never as
onished when hear of youthful sui
,ides. The absence of the fear of
leath-so peculiar to youth, for we
ret accustomed ito the sweet habit
# living" and hate to change; but
'outh has formed no such habit
he absence of this restraining prin-
iple and the love of change conspire
o make suicide possible. Then the
ision Of what grief is; the terrible
urtain that mercifully hides the flu
ure, drawn all at once the pang
hat reHds the heart as we recognize
he friend untrue, the promise
roken, the future void-no wonder
hat the river seems so mercifuI, the
,nife so kind, the poison so sweet!
louth has no PHILOSOPHICAL E. W.
J., IN Applet0nS' Journal for Septena-
en-.