It is rather on the system I am
pondering than on the individual, though the vision of Josie at thirty
unwedded, and a little hard and worn, haunts my retina and makes me
feel philosophical. Away down in the bottom of my boots or my soul, or
wherever a man can most safely harbor a secret reflection, has long
lain a feeling of wonder that the world continues to put its daintiest,
most cherished, and most carefully tended daughters through the
peculiar social programme in vogue. Is it not bewilderingly true that
every young woman of position and manners in Christendom, be her father
a Knight of the Garter or a Congressman, her mother an azure-blooded
countess or the ambitious better half of a retired grocer, finds on the
threshold of life only one course open to her if she desires to be
conventional, and to do what is naturally expected of her? From twelve
to eighteen instruction--and in these latter days exemplary
instruction--Latin, Greek, if there is a craving for it, history,
psychology, chemistry, political economy, to say nothing of the modern
languages and special courses in summer in botany, conchology, and
physiology. And then, dating from a long anticipated day, or rather
night, a metamorphosis startling as the transition of the cocoon; a
formal letting loose of the finished maiden on the polished parquet
floor of the social arena.
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