Omaha daily bee., 1890-01-05
WHEN WOMEN ARE DEcElTFuL
What an Observing Man Has to Say
About the Age of Omc

What an Observing Man Has to Say
Abou the Age of Women.
Time was when to, be sixteen was the
best thing that could happen to a young
girl. 1t was the age of dewy freshness,
of innocent impressib ility, and of all the
other delightful but rather verdant vir-
tues which have won the heart of the
poet to sopg and wooedithe mindFof the
sage to something dbetter than his phi
rosophy. But sweet sixteen is in short
dresses today end 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 ac-
qaintance with the simplicity of n child.
1t was a 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 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 girIhood,' y says IL
woman writer on the New York Sun,
have passed into "a poise of manner
and a gracious dignity that places her
friends at ice at their easy best. She
has had experience, aud tina expert
ence has given her a clear understand
ing of the world as it really is and of
herself without illusions. Therefore
her estimates and criticisms of life
are sharp n sure and usually to be
trusted, because she has no theories to
bolster mp and no illusions to perpetu-
ate"
"But there is something to be said on
the other side" said a woman OF twenty
| 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 lie be-
tween twenty-five and thirty. In the
first place a 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 ten years
at a; stroke. II a woman who is only
still young takes the coy and kittenish
role, she makes herself Immortality ridic-
ulous, and d~eservedly SO. She has some
times even to fear letting herself be
| spontaneous and natural, lest some one
shall dub her the 'girlisb old GIRL To
be older than her years makes a prig of
her at once, and men and gods will shun
her.
ITO the very young man she must be
grandmotherly without hurting his
dear, little vanity by superior wisdom
and patronage. To the middle-aged
man she must respond with a maturity
of judgment that matches his own, and
yet she must continually suggest the
Innocence of sixteen To the man be-
tween the two she may perhaps be
nearer her natural self, and yet even
with him she has c~ontihually'tO remem-
Der hat she must never the
equality OF knowledge or experience
or Judgment which she is sure
she really possesses. She is
often -truer in2her. judgment and
wiser in her conclusions than he is; he
must never suspect 1t. She may be
c~leverer than he, but she must be
c~leverer enough to conceal it. She
must follow him always, but, like little
Iulus, it must beltwith unequal foot
steps, or his vanity IS wounded. From
% to 30 a 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 delighted. DC
you begin to realize itin