Brown's, I screeched like an owl. They said I danced like Terpsichore;
at Smith's, they declared I wabbled round like any other lame duck. They
said my taste in dress was the pink of perfection; at the Duzenbury's, I
was scandalously deficient in every thing of the sort. It's a way the
young men of that day had with all the girls; and they go the same vile
way now. Pray don't have any thing to do with them. I don't, and I
wouldn't for the world. Folks say I'm prejudiced against em; but it
isn't so--I hate 'em. It is healthy to hate what is hateful. It is
healthy to hate a bundle of broadcloth, kerseymere, buttons, and brass,
and it's my delight by day and dream by night. I'm forty-four--you're
fourteen. I've seen the world--you haven't. You look through rosy
glasses; I through the clear, naked eye. My advice to you on the young
men question is this: Discount nine words in every ten spoken to you as
absolute trash--the gush of mere evaporative sentiment. If you are
called pretty, graceful, accomplished, neat in dress, comely in person,
that your eyes sparkle like diamonds, and your lips are poetic, with
whole volumes of such, just make up your mind that there are plenty of
fools around trying to make a sillier one than themselves. It may seem
very fine for the moment, but it will realize something very different
afterward. Suppose you are _not_ caught up? All the better. I'm
forty-four, independent, free, a slave to no man nor monkey. Better
live, to write your own tale than be the abject one to another. Better
be forty-four and yourself, than a cipher belonging to some body else.
Far better beware of the young men than be worn by them. At least so
thinks and says

FORTY-FOUR.

* * * * *