The Lake Charles echo. [volume] (Lake Charles, Parish of Calcasieu, La.) 1876-1898, 1876-09-14
THE MLsEREEs or CHILDHOOD.
ApPIst0n's Journal


One Of the greatest Of the petitss nis-
of childhood arises from dress A
boy suffers dreadfully if his clothes are
of . peculiar cut or a shade finer than
his fellows. 1 have known q boy made
miserable because he was compiled to
wear a collar OF a peculiar and pictur-
esque cut; and one Of my gIOomiest
Periods of modification hangs round a
sash that was required to wear, which
was considered unreasOnably broad.
The uudying laughter Of q scoruful
schoOlmate still rings in my ears. When
1 came home and complained Of it, was
made to wear it, to show me that 1 must
be Indifferent to ridicuIe! As if a child
of seven could conquer and kill that
emotion! The decision was very IN
wise, for it simply caused me to suffer,
and took my mind from greater and bet
ter things. Had the sash been removed,
I should 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, a few years ago, that
she felt she had made fatal mistake in
not allowing her daughter when a little
girl to have a hOOp-skirt; all the other
children had them at the dancing-schOoI,
and looked, as she thought, EidicuIOusIy
like ballet-girls, so she sent her child in
among them in lanky robe, which made
her look very unlike them. The child
was thus rendered conspicuous and I'M
happy. She wept, and inpIOred, and
begged to stay at home, but was made
by her strOng-minded parent to go and
endure. After she had greatly suffered
by this process. her mother discovered
her mistake, and found that the subject
of dress was hereafter to be her daugh-
ter's one subject of thought and interest,
while a certain bitterness had crept in,
to the great injury of an originally
amiable character.
There is danger always, in thus asking
Of chr children, a virtue too great for
Ssssss===ss- that re create the very vice
we seek to cU SS: ssa.sszisliEsn ars dressed
like their fellows, costume as55 5777lissu
proper subordinate position. 1t is the
skin of the part" said a famous TRACE
dian; and it should be like the skin,
fitting, and not otherwise.
If that lady who denied her little
daughter the heop-skirt had been asked
herself to go down broadway in blOOmer
costume, she would have rebelled decid-
eddy and yet she demanded Of her little
daughter q courage ten times as great,
and inflicted a suffering immeasurably
greater.
For children can suffer. There is an
intensity about it like their appetites
it has not been dulled by repetition
One Of the few privileges of growing old
is that we cannot suffer so keenly. We
know from repeated blows that time will
cure US. We get not to care-but obi
the strength of youthful grief What
enormous vitality it has ! how protein
its shapes I am never astOnished when
I hear of youthful suicides. The absence
of fear of death-sO peculiar to youth,
for we get accustomed to the sweet
habit of living" and hate to change ;
but youth has Termed NO such habit
the absence Of this restraining principle
and the love of change cOnspire to make
suicide possible. Then the vision Of
what grief is; the terrible curtain that
mercifuIly hides the future, drawn all at
once the pang that rends the heart as
we recognize the friend untrue, the
promise broken, the future vOid-nO
wonder that the river seems 50 merciful,
the knife so kind, the poison so sweet
Youth has no philosophy.
A HERoINE.-It was a simple thing