C.N. Douglas, comp. Forty Thousand Quotations: Prose and Poetical. 1917.
Girlhood
A lovely girl is above all rank.
The blushing beauty of a modest maid.
Girls we love for what they are; young men for what they promise to be.
The inward fragrance of a young girl’s heart is what crystallizes into love.
When one is five-and-twenty, one has not chalk-stones at one’s finger-ends that the touch of a handsome girl should be entirely indifferent.
The girl of the period sets up to be natural, and is only rude; mistakes insolence for innocence; says everything that comes first to her lips, and thinks she is gay when she is only giddy.
One must always regret that law of growth which renders necessary that kittens should spoil into demure cats, and bright, joyous school-girls develop into the spiritless, crystallized beings denominated young ladies.
She was in the lovely bloom and spring-time of womanhood; at the age when, if ever angels be for God’s good purpose enthroned in mortal form, they may be, without impiety, supposed to abide in such as hers.
We love a girl for very different qualities than understanding. We love her for her beauty, her youth, her mirth, her confidingness, her character, with its faults, caprices and God knows what other inexpressible charms; but we do not love her understanding.
The presence of a young girl is like the presence of a flower; the one gives its perfume to all that approach it, the other her grace to all that surround her.