Alexandria gazette. [volume] (Alexandria, D.C.) 1834-1974, 1897-01-19
Alexandria 6azttte,
TUEsDAY EVENING. JAN. 10. 1897
THE SOUTHERN GIRL
an Attempt to Analyzc Young Woman
Who IS Superior to Analysis.

w no IS superior 10 tualySb
The southern girl is many sided
She is mettlesome and sentimental,
practical and fanciful by turns, apt
to dance divinely and to tiirt and to
be not overcareful nor overindus
trious, but she never forgets to say
her prayers, and she has unshaka-
BILE faith in humankind.
In man she believes implicitly.
She may not believe all the raptur-
Gus things be says to her, but she
credits him with generous impulses,
thinks him capable of all the higher
emotions and values him as a com
rade. an admirer and repository
for romantic confidence. If he tum-
bles out of the niche where She has
put him, she wonders, but is willing
to regard the case as an exception
and to set him up again, after due
scolding and punishment. She has
unbormded confidence in his ability
for smoothing over rough places for
her and removing any obstacles that
may rise in her path. Men are al
ways good to women, she thinks
her father is, and SO is her brother
and her cousin jim.
The southern girl enjoys with all
her heart She likes music and mo
ton and life and color and plenty
of nice people about her saying
pleasant things. She likes all this,
hat she is seldom mercenary. Rear
ed usually among simple surround
ings. the greed for money has not
entered into her soul. 1t is possible
for her to have attained her TWEEN
tieth year and never to have dined
or supped outside of private house
in her life. She likes the person
who pleases her, Independent of his
extrinsic surroundings, and at any
time viii slight the attentions of a
good match" to devote herself to
the man whose waltz step suits her
and who has power of entertaining.
She is ingenious and tactful, with
all,her dawdling ways and languid
airs. She can turn her last season 5
ball dress upside down and inside
out and make it look almost as
good as new, and she can darn the
parlor curtains almost as well rs
grandmother could and change the
furniture round so that the shabby
spots will be in the shade. She can
arrange a dish of fruit to resemble
a. poem, make an evening bonnet
out of next to nothing. and, last but
not least, She can rattle off nonsense
with an infectious delight that
makes her the life of whatever com
pany she is in.
The southern girl or woman born
in the murky atmosphere of the late
sixties, imperfectly educated, debar-
red from advantages which her par
ents craved for her, will give the
stranger an impression of culture
which perhaps a critical eXamina-
ton would not bear out.
The southern girl is paradox,
with her capacity for unselfshness
and absurdity, with her pride and
scorn of petty meanness and her
serious strivings after the econom-
ical. She will buy flowers for the
table even if the larder is empty,
and if she gets a windfall in the
form of legacy she will put half
of lin marble cross for the church
and the other half in some jewel
for personal adornment, even
though new curtains and carpets
and whole everyday gowns arc a
crying need in the household.
The new woman finds little en-
couragementi in the south. Shesends
out her piping notes to the northern
suffrage societies and offers peti-
tons to the state assemblies, but the
popular voice is against her, and
sometimes it comes out that the
woman's suffrage associations of
the south, so much talked about,
have membership only sufficient to
furnish the necessary officers. New
York Sun.