Shepherdstown register. [volume] (Shepherdstown, Va. [W. Va.]) 1849-1955, 1881-12-31
THE ART OF FILTRATION.
Merciless Female Critics-DIferent Kinds
Of Tiirts.

MerciIess Female Critics-DIferent Kinds
Of Tiirts.
A girl is q hirt who exchanges a coy
glance with middleaged, eligible
bachelor who picks up glove which
she has dropped; she is something
worse than tllrt - @ mink if she makes
herself pleasant to another girl't be-
trothed. The iron rule of modesty,
which men have imposed upon women
as protection against their wiles,
leaves young women scarcely free to
move or speak in the presence Of the
trousered sex without risk of being
thought "forward;" but women them
selves are much Steiner in their defini-
ton Of forwardness than men. In
feminine judgment every girl or pretty
young woman is forward, and conse-
quently firt, who monopolizes the at
tention of males in O social circle. This
she can do by being toe modest, as well
as by being not modest enough; for her
own sex will moi account as modesty
tho grace which charms without at
tempting to do SO. Men never speak so
i'll OF tho worse women as women do OF
the best among their sex who have the
art Of pleasing. There are men whom
all other men Join in rraising, but there
has scarcely lived q woman-wife,
virgin or saint-who has not had de-
tractors among other women. Should
there have been some few exceptions
which prove this general rule, they will
be found to have fourished in the
ranks of the fearfully and unutterably
ugly.
Every woman has firted, but We are
not concerned with the women whose
innocent firtations are but the gush of
youthful spirits, or with those who owe
the title OF firt to the mere malignity
of their own sex. The firts of whom
we propose to treat are those who firt
with malice prepense. 1t may also be
termed, less philosophically, the arr of
playing with fire and getting scorched
more or less often. All firts burn
themselves, once at least. Some squeal
when they but SINCE their finger tips,
and retire straightway from the game
with their eyes full of tears. These are
third-class firts, having no real heart
in the play. The recollection OF their
first smart makes them redden and
tingle till they become I'D women, when
perhaps they smiles and wish the burn
would come over again. 1t was third
class firt who, on the strength of
short and sharp acquaintance with the
ways of the other sex, invented such
sayings as 'tman is perfidious. The
second class firts get frequently burned
without ever inuring themselves to the
pain. They resemble dullish boys who
play at football because they must, but
never surmount the fear of being
Skinned. Sometimes the second-class
fIt gives up playing and learns to
laugh at her burns; more often he
goes on till she can play no longer,
and YEARLY sums up her experience of
the sport as call burns and no
pleasures" But the frst-class firt
cares not a pin for scorches. She is
the salamander who lives in the fire.
Sparks fly around her and she revels in
them she is all over scars and surveys
them complacently as soldier does his
wounds. Flirt from the nursery, flirt
in her teens, firt in her prime, she con-
tinues flirting when she is an old
woman and firts on her deathbed with
the doctor. If she could come to life
for moment in her coffin she would
flirt with the undertaken. Commend us
to this class of firt for making the
heads of men flame like the tops of
lucifer matches. She sets quiet house
holds afre everything turns to finder
on her passage, and when she is buried,
an odof OF birthstone hovers over Ier
tomb. Her old lovers would be afraid
to lift up the grave slab that covers her
lest they should see little blue-forked
flames lean ont diabolically.