Idaho semi-weekly world. [volume] (Idaho City, Idaho Territory) 1875-1908, 1890-03-14
WOMEN AT TwEnTy-oDD.
The Age 1T which They Are said to \
Most EnteYtaiuin1.

Ths Age ~ which They Are Said to -
Most Entertaining.
Time was when to be 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 the poet to song and wooed the
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. 1t was good thing
cnce to be sixteen; 1t is 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 woman's life
when she is so delightful married or
unmarried, but particularly the latter),"
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 poise of manner and gracious
dignity that places Der friends at once
at their easy best. She has had expert
ence, and that experience has given
her clear understanding Of the world
as it really is and of herself without
illusions. Therefore her estimates and
| mi ioiav r,f - cIaV nd
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 woman of twenty
six who heard him. SIT may look very
smooth sailing from the outside, but one
can have little idea how much tact il
takes to steer straight in the narrow
path of the five years that lie between
, twenty-five and thirty. In the first
place, a woman at that age hardly
, knows where to place herself She il
, neither young nor old. She is what
Julian Hawthorne calls still young,
and the little adjective adds ten years al
stroke. If woman who is only still
young takes the coy and kittenish role
: she makes herself Immortality ridicu
lous, and deservedly so. She has some
thing even to fear letting herself b.
, spontaneous and natural, lest some one
shall dub her the 'girlish old girl T,
\ be older than her years makes prig O
her at once, and men and gods viii
/ shun her.
y ITO the very young man she must b.
: grandmotherly without hurting his dea
S little vanity by superior wisdom AM
Q patronage. To the middle-aged man sh,
r must respond with maturity of judg
d ment that matches his own, and yet sh
+ must continually suggest the innocenc
y of sixteen. To the man between tn
o two she may perhaps be nearest her mai
: ural self, and yet even with him she ha
e continually to remember that she mus
:. never assume the equality of knowledg
or experience or judgment which she
sure she really possesses. She is ofte
II truer in her Judgment and wiser in he
conclusions than he is; he must neve
suspect it. She may be cleverer tina
y he, but she must be clever enough I
. conceal it. She must follow him Away
u but, like little julius, it must be wit
unequal footsteps or his vanity
,, wounded. From twenty-five to thirty
u woman has the most difficult part of hi
~ life to live. She has to dissemble in tt
a present, remember from the past an
II borrow from the future. She may
delightful but she is far from being
"a lighted. Do you begin to realize itY'