The Hickman courier. [volume] (Hickman, Ky.) 1859-current, 1876-09-01
rHE slIsEKIES or CHILDHOOD.
Appleton's journal.

Appleious journal
One of the greatest of the petites mis-
eres of childhood arises from dress. \
boy suffers lreedfully If his clothes are
of a peculiar cut or shade finer than
his fellows l have known boy made
miserable because he was compiled to
wear collar OF a peculiar and pictur-
esque cut; and one of my glOomiest
periods of modification hangs round
sash that | was required to wear, which
was considered unreasonably broad.
The undying laughter of q scornful
schoolmate still rings in my ears. When
l came home and complained of it, l was
made to wear it, to show me that must
be Indifferent to ridiculel As if a child
of seven could conquer and kill that
emotion! The decision was very un-
wise, for it simply caused me to suffer,
and took my mind from greater and bet
ter things Had the sash been removed,
l 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, few years ago, that
she felt she had made a fatal mistake in
not allowing her daughter when a little
girl to have hoop-skirt; all the other
children had them at the dancing-school,
and locked, As she thought, ridiculously
like ballet-girls, so she sent her child in
among them in llnky robe, which made
her look very unlike them The child
was thus rendered conspicuous and I'M
happy. She wept, and implored, 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 4 certain bitterness had crept in,
to the great injury of an originally
amiable character.
There Is danger always, in thus asking
! OF our children, a virtue too great fol-
( their years, that we create the very vice
we seek to cure. If children are dressed
like their fellows, costume assumes its
+ proper subordinate position. ct Is the
skin of the part" said a famous TRACE
! dian and il should be like the skin,
/ fitting, and not otherwise.
If that lady who denied her little
daughter the hoop-skirt had been asked
herself to 20 down broadway in bloome1
costume, she would have rebelled decid-
eddy; and yet she demanded of her little
daughter courage ten times as great
and inflicted a suffering immeasurab'y
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 oh
the strength of youthful grief! What
enormous vitality it has how protein
its shapes l am never astonished wher
1 hearof 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 formed 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
mercifully 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 80 mercifuI
the knife 50 kind, the poison so sweet
Youth has no philosophy.