Staunton vindicator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1860-1896, 1878-02-15
CROSSING THE LINE

There Is no time more important in the
lives of our young women than that in
which they cross the social line which
bars the girl from the society privileges
which belong to women. 1t is time in
which they should look well to manners ana
modesty and the graces- armor which will
be most necessary to them through life.
There is nothing that excites the plying
surprise of well bred people more than girl
plunging into society poorly equipped, and
SO eager for its enjoyments that she for.
gets that person that it is all important
to emember-herself. She makes the
great mistake that securing the attention
of the other sex is something that lies
within her own efforts, rather than in her
attractions, and that the young girls who
are followed by, what are wrongly called.
admirers, to whom they allow the liberty
of familiarity, are examples to be followed
as means to the same questionable sue
cess. And so she offers herself and
chrome as an inducement, inasmuch as
instead of being scarce to men she is all
ever present convenience, pretty much as
a cigarSis. Men never have any doubt
about the certainty of securing her for any
entertainment that may offer, from church
escort to hours of tete tete in an otherwise
deserted parlor. Her face becomes fami-
liar to the public to the point of safety.
and she is on the acquaintance list of al
most everybody that wishes to have her.
Personal effort to secure attention brings
miscellaneous attendants, miscellaneous
attendants bring miscellaneous manners
and miscellaneous manners, miscellaneous
conversation, all of which she catches by
association. She begins to use the catch
words and slang of men, and audacious de.
partures from mode and even from conven-
tional properties, which shock the real
society women. are considered by this
young neophyte as evidences of cleverness
which show her to be fitted for her place
in society.
And yet this girl is not wicked girl.
She means well and thinks she is doing the
correct thing. 1t is her misfortune to
have taken a bad model. But all the same
she is damaged by it. 1t wears off the del
icate purity Of manner which is the great
charm in young girls; it secures her atten-
ton but robs her of the reverence which is
the due Of her sex it makes her popular
convenience to men, but deprives her of be-
ing a necessity to them it gives her the
fondness Of men but deprives her of their
love, and while she may have the company
but she can never have the companionship
of the wise. She is often taken for light
person, but this does her great injustice.
She is merely the girl she is, because she
thinks that is the way ''society" would
have her to do, forgetting that one may
have been to hops and balls without num-
her and yet never have seen society which
rs a different thing altogether. Those are
the outposts of it, where people are chal-
lenged and where it is discovered what
they are. but society is place where peo-
pie are taken into real social life and
form a unit of the whole, and such
girls as we have been describing never en-
ter there. In society one is modest, cour-
teous. deferential, and there gov will new
er find the yivandiere Of the outpcsts her
exhuberance, her rafting fastness and hef
hale fellow weH saet air would be out Of
place and create only pity for her igno-
rance.
To young girls whether in or just enter
ing social lifeo we cannot too strongly
commend the propriety OF taking the best
examples by which to model their own
conduct. Whether just crossing the line
or Just crossed, it would be well to asGeE-
tain your latitude and see whittier you are
sailing. :