St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1890-02-04
WOMEN AT c5 TO so.
The Age at Which They Are Said
to Be Most Entertaining.


New York sun.
lime was when to be sixteen was the
best thing that could happen to a young
GIL. 1t was the age of dewy freshness,
OF lnnocenF 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 sixteen is in
short dresses to-day. and still under the
rule or her gOverneSS. Her affections
have not yet departed from her dolls,
and she treats the few young men of
acquaintance with the simplicity of a
child. 1t was a good thing once to be
sixteen; it is good thing now to 0e
wenty; to be twenty-five is better still, e
but to be twenty-eight is to be blest!
There is no time in woman'S life
when she is so delightful married or I'M
married. but particularly the latter),"
said an observing man yesterday, las
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 her friends at once
at their easy best. She has had expert
ence has given her clear understand
ing of the world as it really is and of
herself without illusions. Therefore
her estimates and criticisms of life are
sharp and sure, and usually to be
trusted, because she has no theories to
bolster up and no Illusions to perpet-
uate."
But there is something to be said on
the other side" said a woman of
twenty-siX who heard him. sit may look
like very smooth sailing from the out
side, but one can have little idea how
much tact it takes to steer straight in
the narrow path of the five years that
lie 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
woman who is only still young
takes the coy and kittenish role, she
makes herself Immortality ridiculous,
and deservedly so. She has sometimes
even to fear letting herself be spontane
Gus and natural, lest some one shall
dub her the 'girlish old GIRL To be
older than her years makes prlg OF
her at once, and men and gods will shun
her.
ITO the very young mau she must be
grandmotherly without hurting his dear
little vanity by superior wisdom and
patronage. To the middle-aged man
she must respond with maturity of
judgment that matches his own, and
yet she must continually suggest the in
nocence of sixteen. To the man between
the two she may perhaps be nearer
her natural self, and yet even with
him she has to continually to remember
that she must never assume the equality
of knowledge or experience or judy
ment which she is sure she really pos
seSseS. She is often truer in her judg-
ments and wiser in her conclusions than
he is; he must never suspect it. She
may be eleverer than he is, but she
must be clever enough to conceal it.
She must follow him always, but, like
little Iulus, it must be with unequal
footsteps or his vanity is wounded.
From twenty-five to thirty woman has
the most difficult part of her life to live.
She has to dissemble in the present, re-
member from the past and borrow from
the future. She may be delightful, but
she is far from being delighted. Do
YOU begin to realize it?''