Stray Thoughts for Girls

E-text prepared by Clare Boothby, Diane Monico, and the Project Gutenberg
Online Distributed Proofreading Team
I sing the Obsolete
New and Enlarged Edition
Longmans, Green, and Co. 39 Paternoster Row, London New York and Bombay
1903
An unlessoned girl, unschool'd, unpractis'd, Happy in this, she is not yet so old But she may learn.
What is the awkward age?
Certainly not any special number of years. It is most frequently found between the ages of thirteen and twenty-seven, but some girls never go through it, and some never emerge from it!
I should be inclined to define it as the age during which girls are asked—and cannot answer—varying forms of the question which so embarrassed the Ugly Duckling: Can you purr—can you lay eggs?
Most girls on growing up pass through an uncomfortable stage like this, in which neither they nor their friends quite know what niche in life they can best fill—sometimes, because of their own undisciplined characters; sometimes, because the niche itself seems to be lacking. Whether this stage be their misfortune or their fault, it is an unpleasant one—both for themselves and for their friends. With much sympathy for both, I dedicate these few suggestions to my known and unknown friends who are passing through it.
L. H. M. SOULSBY. OXFORD, April 4, 1893.