CHAPTER VIII
A GIRL'S EARLY DAYS
By early days I mean the years between sixteen and twenty-one or
thereabouts, and I am sure there ought to be a chapter in this book on
this subject, though I am not at all sure that I can write it. I only
make the attempt because I have been urged to try, and because a book
that did not recognize how distressing the "emotional muddles" of this
period often are, would be a very unsympathetic production.
Most men very quickly become clearly conscious of desires springing
from their sexual natures, but most girls only do so very slowly. What
a girl is conscious of at this period is a new stress of emotion. She
finds herself easily elated and easily depressed. She has moods she
cannot understand or manage, and vague yearnings after she knows not
what. Sometimes she will give way to outbreaks of temper, and
afterwards feel acutely ashamed. Other people say of her that she is
"difficult" or wayward, or trying; and she knows it herself better than
any of them. Sometimes she is irritable.
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