Daily independent. [volume] (Elko, Nev.) 188?-1915, 1890-02-14
WOMEN Ar TwENrY-obn,


The Ago at Which They Arc Said to Be
MoSt Entertaining.
Tune was when to DO sixteen was tho
best thing that could happen to young
girl. 1t was the age Of dewey fresh
ness, OF innocent impressibility, and of
all the other delightful but rather
verdant virtues which have won the
heart Of tho poet to song and woocd tho
mind OF the sage to something better
than his philosophy. But sweet six
teen is in short dresses to-day, and still
under the rule OF her governess. Her
affections have not yet departed from
her dolls, and she treats the few young
men of her acquaintance with the SIM
plicity of a child. It was good thing
once to be sixteen; it is q good thing
now to be twenty; to be twenty-five is
better still, but to be twenty-eight is to
be blest!
There is no time in q woman's life
when she is so delightful (married or
unmarried, but particularly tho lstter),"
said an observing man yesterday, "as
she is from twenty-five to thirty. She
still has the enthusiasm of youth, and
much Of the tolerant sense Of middle
life. Her Judgment is mature. and her
opinions carry weight. The shyness
and timidity of her girlhood have passed
into a poiso Of manner and gracious
dignity that places her friends at once
at their easy best. Sho has had expert
Cnce aad that experience has given
her . clear understanding of the world
as 1t really Is and OF herself without
illusions. Therefore hor estimates and
criticisms OF life IRE sharp and sure and
usually to be trusted, because she has no
theories to bolster up and illusions to
perpetuate."
But there is something to be said on
the other side" said o woman Of twenty
ak who heard him. "It may look very
smooth sailing from the outside, but one
can have little idea how much tact it
takes to steer straight in the narrow
path Of the five years that lilo between
twenty-five and thirty. In the first
place, woman at that age hardly
knows where to place herself. She is
neither young nor old. She is what
Julian Hawthorne calls still young
and the little adjective adds ton years at
n stroke. II woman who is only still
young takes the coy and kittenish role,
she makes herself Immortality ridiou-
Aouo, oAu oooeFfouIy oO' kou6 ubS sOLn6e
thing oven to fear letting herself be
spontaneous and natural, lest some one
shall dub her the 'girlish old girl To
be older than her years makes q prig of
her at once, and men and gods will
shun her.
ITO the very young man she must DO
grandmotherly without hurting his dear
little vanity by superior wisdom and
patronage. To the middle-aged man she
must respond with maturity of judg-
ment that matches his own, and yet she
must continually suggest the innocence
OF sixteen. To tho man between tho
two she may perhaps be nearest her nat
ural self, and yet even with him she has
continually to remember that she must
never assume the equality OF knowledge
or experience or judgment which she is
sure she really possesses. She ia often
truer in her Judgment and wiser in her
conclusions than no Is; he must never
suspect It. She may DC cIeverer than
he, but she must be clever enough to
conceal it. She must follow him always,
but, like little julius, it must be with
unequal footsteps or his vanity is
wounded. From twenty-five to thirty q
woman has the most difficult part of her
life to live. She has to dissemble in the
present, remember from the past and
borrow from the future. She may be
delightful, but she is far from being de-
lighted. Do you begin to realize itP'-
N. Y. Sun.