San Antonio daily light. [volume] (San Antonio, Tex.) 1886-1907, 1896-10-28
THE CHARM OF RESERVE.
Nothing More Becoming in a Young Girl
Than This Quality.

Than This Quality.
There is a great amount of small talk
INDUCED in concerning the modern girl
Shes<s supposed to be an entirely move,
type of womanhood. Oldfashioned
mothers look askance at the greater
freedom allowed to the girl of to-day
They predict all manner of harm to
come, Just as the old-fashioned moth.
ers of their girlhood predicted when
they were departing from the ways Of
previous times. These latest mentors
forget they themselves cast aside the
stately fashions of the days of the min
uet and the heightened, stilted phrase
ology in which well-bred danes were
then wont to express their simplest
thoughts. These sentimental, stately
ladies who wept over the sorrows of
Alonzo and Melissa could see nothing
but revolt against the social order in
the freedom of the girl who read George
Eliot and thought for herself Yet the
women of that generation have grown
up and reared their daughters, who are
reaching forward to a still broader life
anu k4CeLAG1 bDlIt4 lAAlLlblGso VI NoNlul-
ness. Who dare say that the genera
ton of our grandmothers or great
Observation-Disclosures was more moral
than the generation of to-day? 1t was
far more sentimental, and this mawkish
sentimentality no doubt weakened the
morals more than the coarser realism
of the modern novels. Runaway
matches among well-bred young poo
pie were much more frequent than to-
day, and no special odium seemed to
be attached to them. Clandestine en-
gagements were common. Certain Sec
lions of country are still pointed out
which were in dispute between two
states. There were the Gretna Greens of
a whole territory, where justices con-
sidered people amenable to no law,
because they were in doubt to which
state law they should give allegiance.
Hurried ceremonies ofmarriage could be
performed there without the neces-
sity of publishing banns, and before the
irate parents of the contracting parties
could prevent it.
We live to-day in blaze of publicity.
The presence of a local paper, eager per-
haps for a sentimental paragraph. re-
strains many a foolish maiden to-day
from an elopement which her grand
mother would have looked upon as a
sentimental episode. Our girls of to-
day are not given up as the girls of a
few generations ago were to the all-ab-
sorbing pursuit of Husbands" They
are not engaged in the unwomanly task
of setting their caps" as the old phrase
goes, for every handsome stranger"
that appears. They must be wooed and
won by some moresterling quality than
a handsome face and fine clothes. 1t
is great mistake to think that pretty
girl arrays herself in dainty gown and
fetching" colors merely to attract
suitors. She dresses in pretty color, and
graceful, attractive fashion because she
is attracted to such surroundings. She
arrays her room and fits out all her sur
roundings in the same way, because
she enjoys beauty. She is gay, because
she is young. Somber thoughts belong
to experience. The danger is that the
modern girl, with all her exuberance
of animal spirits, may be misunderstood.
She will be wise and she will be doubly
attractive if through all her gayety,
her natural flow of spirits, there be
thrown a certain reserve. Let her tel
lets be as dainty and beautiful as she
can obtain. Let her remember to mod
crate the tone of her voice. Let her
cultivate a certain repose of manner,
which need not interfere with the most
graceful dancing football or the ARREST
notions.
An objection to the old-time maiden
undoubtedly was that she was too anx-
ious to be sought. Her future depend
ed upon a successful marriage. Is this
the reason why those by-gone loves
were so frequently, if we must believe
story books, untrue, and the unhappy
maiden left as "blighted being" to
drag out long years of purposeless spin
sterhood? Sensible girls and sensible
young men sometimes find they have
made mistakes, and engagements are
broken, in a sensible manner without
either party considering it necessary
to pose as heart-brolen. Such a mat
ter is always to be regretted, and no
self-respecting girl should enter on
such an engagement Gghtly.-N. Y.
Tribune.