Girl

“ Late hours, children's parties, sensational novels, 'flashy' papers, love stories, the drama, the ball-room, talk of beaux, love, and marriage,—that atmosphere of riper years which is so often and so injudiciously thrown around childhood,—all hasten the event which transforms the girl into the woman. ”

“ Would there have been one pretty, golden-haired girl among them with a sweet voice and such eyes as were sure to find the way to one's heart, such rosy, laughing lips, sweet for lovers to kiss when the time came? ”

“ But who am I? a little girl just out of school, who knows nothing of life.
—And that is what makes you more charming. You are a rose which the breath of morning, pure as it is, has not yet touched. Life! ”

“ She taught her that a girl must dress beautifully to be beautiful, that she must learn all the world's ways and secrets, and at the same time appear in speech and manner like a child of Nature, like a newly opened rose. ”

“ It is precisely the same interest which attaches us to the loosely-tied bundle of virtues and accomplishments which we call a girl. We recognise in her our future ruler. The shy, modest creature who has no thought but a dance, and no will but mamma's, will in a few years be our master, changing our habits, moulding our tastes, bending our characters to her own. ”

“ A regular girl, one hundred per cent feminine. One could tell just by the way she wore her clothes, by her daintiness, by the tilt of her bonnet and by the way smiled out from under it. I can’t describe a baby girl any more than I describe a sunset or moonlight or any of the wonders of God—I can only say that she was everything that a baby girl should have been. ”

“ In spite of frowns and closed ears, girls, I am going to insist that all the attractions of a brilliant, or outwardly beautiful, girl are as nothing compared with the attractions of character which spring from many a plain, modest, quiet girl. ”

“ The flower-girl with beautiful eyes stands a better chance than her squinting sister of selling a penny bunch of violets to the next passer-by. If a girl ceased to look ornamental, however intelligent or trustworthy she might be, he got rid of her at once without scruple. ”

“ We want to be sure, that wherever a girl is, there should be a sweet, subduing and harmonizing influence of purity, and truth, and love, pervading and hallowing, from center to circumference, the entire circle in which she moves. If the boys are savages, we want her to be their civilizer. ”

“ Trod the slim path which wound its changeful way
Down the tall hill, past alders all abloom.
A girl, a young girl, is a gracious sight,
A thing to make the eye light gaily up,{91}
We see our youth in her—the joy of youth
Smiles out at us from her white-lidded eyes,
The careless grace of youth is on her lips,
The innocence of youth shines on her brow,
The prettiness of youth is on her cheek,
Her softness is the softness of a flower,
Her brightness and her beauty have the fresh
And healthy glow of morn. ”

“ The girl chooses the lad. You know the old proverb, ‘There are only two things a girl chooses herself—her potatoes and her lover’. You can well imagine how such things begin. They see each other at the kermis, or in the street, or fields. ”

“ While dreaming and chattering, making tiny outfits, and baby clothes, while sewing little gowns, and corsages and bodices, the child grows into a young girl, the young girl into a big girl, the big girl into a woman. ”

“ I come back from school or from playing a game;
Wherever I come from, it’s always the same:
“Well?
“Have you been a good girl, Jane?”
It’s always the end of the loveliest day:
“Have you been a good girl?” ”

“ The girl, on the contrary, plays with her doll, washes and dresses it, strokes it, clasps and kisses it, puts it to bed and tucks it in, sings it a cradle-song, or speaks with it as if it were a living being.... ”

“ She not only dwelt with persistent minuteness on the many details of her more humble life, but told of her connection with the Girl Pioneers, the pleasure it had brought her, the fineness of its aims and purposes, and the wholesomeness of a life lived in the open, with its knowledge of bird and tree lore, and the many new avenues of knowledge it opened to a girl. ”

“ They had lived such quiet lives, these young ladies, and had slid so tranquilly from the frilled-trouser-wearing and les-graces-playing period of childhood to the long skirts, croquet, and flirtation of marriageable age, that they had hardly thought of that largest component part of a girl's day-dream, settling in life. ”

“ A tall, elegant girl of apparently only three or four-and-twenty, an imperious, regal, haughty girl, whose raven-black hair was braided over pale, regular features, and whose rich silk attire glistened and rustled as she walked. ”

“ “You can’t understand it; for you men, who are free and make your own choice, it’s always clear whom you love. But a girl’s in a position of suspense, with all a woman’s or maiden’s modesty, a girl who sees you men from afar, who takes everything on trust,—a girl may have, and often has, such a feeling that she cannot tell what to say.” ”

“ I was daily associating with this charming young girl, at an age when first the female form begins to awaken new and undefined ideas of delight in the mind of a half-grown youth, and it was impossible for me not to feel all its influences. ”

“ You become acquainted with the pretty girl; she introduces to you two or three of the young men; you meet the young matron, and at night you are all down in the parlor laughing and having as merry a time as possible. ”

“ Give such a girl any true work that will make her active in the dawn, and weary at night, with the consciousness that her fellow-creatures have indeed been the better for her day, and the powerless sorrow of her enthusiasm will transform itself into a majesty of radiant and beneficent peace. ”

“ The arms of the unloved girl close about the formless air and more real than her loneliness and her sorrow is the imagined embrace, the awaited warm, close pressure of the hands, the fancied gaze. What does it mean? ”

“ This occasion is not one for splendor and show, and the cue for the girl graduate is modesty and simplicity. She is not supposed to be a radiant queen bedecked for a festive occasion, but a charming young girl equipped and ready to begin life as a young woman. ”

“ It was a new world to her, and they seemed a different race of creatures from the girls whose lives were spent in dress, gossip, pleasure, or ennui. They were girls still, full of spirits fun, and youth; but below the light-heartedness each cherished a purpose, which seemed to ennoble her womanhood, to give her a certain power, a sustaining satisfaction, a daily stimulus, that led her on to daily effort, and in time to some success in circumstance or character, which was worth all the patience, hope, and labor of her life. ”

“ "I understand what you mean, and I believe in this girl. Any one you love must be marvellous, and any girl who has the effect you describe must be fine and noble. To spiritualize one's age—that is something worth doing. If this girl can give a soul to those who have lived without one, if she can create the sense of beauty in people whose lives have been sordid and ugly, if she can strip them of their selfishness and lend them tears for sorrows that are not their own, she is worthy of all your adoration, worthy of the adoration of the world. ”

“ Without meaning to be sentimental, or to envelope things in a golden haze wrought by the imagination only and nowhere to be found in fact, we cannot deny the peculiar charm which belongs to a girl of this age, if she is nice, and neither pert nor silly. Besides, it is not only what she is that interests us, but what she will be; for this is the time when the character is settling into its permanent form, so that the great thought of every one connected with her is, How will she turn out? Into what kind of woman will the girl develop? ”

“ for there is just this difference between the making of a girl’s character and a boy’s—you may chisel a boy into shape, as you would a rock, or hammer him into it, if he be of a better kind, as you would a piece of bronze. But you cannot hammer a girl into anything. ”

“ And I shall find some girl perhaps, And a better one than you, With eyes as wise, but kindlier, And lips as soft, but true. ”

“ Those who look with sympathy and love at girlhood today, cannot help wishing that some Voice of power would ring out through every place where girls are found saying—"Everybody take hold!" If everybody would respond to the task as that night in the fire and the storm, the girl, in body, mind and spirit might easily be saved. ”

“ And the sweet thoughts and gentle day-dreams of that fair and enamoured girl, however full to her of an interest beyond all the storms and perils of ambition, are not so readily adapted to narration:—their soft monotony a few words can paint. ”

“ When one observes carefully any large cosmopolitan group of young women, she sees some with hard faces, some marked by suffering, many marked by selfishness and fretfulness and many more showing dissatisfaction and unhappiness, and her mind goes back involuntarily to the fairy story with the mirror which showed "the girl you meant to be." The contrast between what many a girl meant to be and what she is, reveals a real tragedy. ”

“ Time was when the phrase, 'a fair young English girl,' meant the ideal of womanhood; to us, at least, of home birth and breeding. It meant a creature generous, capable, modest; something franker than a Frenchwoman, more to be trusted than an Italian, as brave as an American but more refined, as domestic as a German and more graceful. ”

“ There is the girl with a butterfly net, the girl who goes a-fishing, the girl who swims, the girl who wears bathing suits, the girl who gives a sparkle to the Chautauqua meetings in the summer, the girl who gets up camping parties, the girl who gets up the dances, the girl who plots theatricals, the girl with the camera, the girl who can shoot like a cowboy,—where should we end that remarkable list? ”

“ Here's a girl, a beautiful, high-spirited girl of sixteen, straight out from college, at the beginning of life, with her, head full of 'whys,' and 'wherefores.' Sixteen's well-nigh grown up these days, mind you. ”

“ All sorts of girls—sturdy and slender girls; queer girls with lean, wiry bodies; deceptive girls with bodies curiously plastic under the appearance of fragility; here a young miracle of physical culture; there a girl with the pointed breasts and flying shoulders, the limbs, the hips, the questing face that recalled some fugitive soul of the woods and mountains ”

“ ‘You were speaking about its being a girl,’ said Miss Betsey. ‘I have no doubt it will be a girl. I have a presentiment that it must be a girl. Now child, from the moment of the birth of this girl—’
‘Perhaps boy,’ my mother took the liberty of putting in.
‘I tell you I have a presentiment that it must be a girl,’ returned Miss Betsey. ”

“ There was a little girl,
Who had a little curl,
Right in the middle of her forehead.
When she was good
She was very very good,
And when she was bad she was horrid. ”

“ Now, the Much-Loved Girl is nothing in the world except 'Miss.' She rhymes inevitably with almost anybody's kiss.—I am not just 'Miss.' The Much-Loved Girl is nothing in the world except 'Girl.'—She rhymes inevitably with 'Curl.' I am not just 'Girl.' She is 'Coy' and rhymes with 'Boy.' She is 'Simple' and rhymes with 'Dimple.' I am none of those things! ”

“ The girl's shyness wore off by degrees, her tremulous voice grew firmer, her pallid cheeks flushed with a colour tender as that of the wild almond blossom, and her eyes, bright with a new-born confidence, were lifted more frequently to the other's face. Their hands touched often and lingered caressingly together, and when the elder lady smiled, a responsive smile shone in the girl's raised eyes and played on her delicately-moulded mouth—a smile that was like sunlight on clear water, revealing a nature so simple and candid ”

“ Girlhood.—We have talked with each other about a small girl’s ethics, the proper social relations of girls with boys. Your girlhood has been one of innocence, playfulness and unbounded joy. I have noticed with real pleasure that you have not been in a hurry to leave the period of girlhood. Although you will soon be seventeen, and you are quite as large as your mother, you will not be a mature woman until you are about twenty. ”

“ At thirteen one is already a grown-up girl. Are you already a grown-up girl, little rogue?
—I don't know.
—You don't know, ah, ah. We are going to see first, if you are modest. Come close to me; see, little girl, give me your chin, and this pretty little dimple.... Oh, oh! you are laughing, stay, stay ... she has some pretty little dimples on her cheeks too, the little naughty thing. We are going to make a little confession.... Ah, you are blushing. Why are you blushing? You have then some great sins on your conscience? ”

“ I woke up out of the ether with an utterly abandoned feeling, and asked the nurse right away if it was a boy or a girl. She told me it was a girl, and so I turned my head away and wept. ‘all right,’ I said, ‘I’m glad it’s a girl. And I hope she’ll be a fool – that’s the best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool.” ”

“ As our little girl emerges from babyhood she finds the life opening before her a bright and happy one, but one hedged about by proprieties, and one in which from babyhood to old age, she must expect to be always under the control of one of the stronger sex. ”

“ The young girls in the house began to acknowledge her as a natural leader, the boyish young fellows to adore her, and the maturer men to discover that she could hold her own with them in conversation, while another class learned, to their chagrin, that she would not flirt. ”

“ The Plea which I make to the girl herself is that she use, to the full capacity, her power to inhale those things that shall give inspiration for pure, helpful living. Every girl has that power. Some use only two-thirds of it, some one third, some have forgotten its existence. If a girl wants to really live she must "breathe deep," with her soul's windows open wide to the atmosphere that will give her strength. ”