A black pall falls between the past and the future, and strives to
cover the very memory of bygone school years. Money, influence,
position, make havoc, striving in the freest land to set up classes and
aristocracies separated from what is common by impassable barriers,--as
though there were any other aristocracy than that of character and
personal worth!
Ought girls to have intimate friends? How carelessly we use that word
"intimate." Well, this is a very trying question, and needs a careful
answer. Says Mr. Alger, "School-girl friendships are a proverb in all
mouths. They form one of the largest classes of those human attachments
whose idealizing power and sympathetic interfusions glorify the world,
and sweeten existence. With what quick trust and ardor, what eager
relish, these susceptible creatures, before whom heavenly illusions
float, surrender themselves to each other, taste all the raptures of
confidential conversation, lift veil after veil, till every secret
is bare, and, hand in hand, with glowing feet, tread the paths of
Paradise!" But what do you mean by "intimate"? If you understand by
that word entire confidence in another under all circumstances; an
unbosoming of every thought and feeling; a complete surrender to your
friend, or mastery over her; a slavish adoration of her, and hearty
concordance in all she does,--do not, then, indulge in an intimate
friendship.
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