TO MY GIRL FRIENDS.

Otago Witness, Issue 2358, 4 May 1899, Page 51

TO MY GIRL FRIENDS.

Dear Girls, — How long it is since we have had a special talk all to ourselves ! I have met some of you regularly at the C.C.C. and enjoyed the sweete&t, friendliest little notes from some of you, but it is nice to have a special day to ourselves now and then.

I have been long waiting a moment's time to have a talk with you about " Our Brothers," to see if our views on the subject are at all similar . Our own brothers, mind, girls ; nofc some one else's brothers. I cannot help wondering if we are sSX we might be to our brothers? If they are the eldest they bully us irt@Sildhood, patronise us in girlhood, and before we have time to get very near to them, they are bent on enlarging the family circle by giving us "a new sister "1 If they are the youngest

we in our turn assume airs of sufatiority** ami make fun (i:ot always quite kindly/ of iiit-ir dirty.hands. their thick boots, and their fearful appetites. We are "sick of the ramie of football," we are peevish and impatient when sails for model yachts, torn jerseys, ami damaged stockings encroach on our time and attention. " Well Emineline, boys are a nuisance," I think I Jiear^ou say. Yes 1 , I know — our own brotheis especially. Yet how dependent they are on us, their own sisters, for Asthat kind of man they will ultimately turn out. Men of whom we shall be proud to say, " Yes, he is my brother " ; or men whom we grieve over with tears of blood, in proportion as we love them. Perhaps you will object that it is "mother" who brings them up, influences them, fits them out with a stock of honour, truth, and loyalty to last them their lifetime. Poor mother ! she does, or she tries to do all this ; but is it fair to leave it to her, unaided? Moreover, can we expect any share in the halo which will surround her memory, unless we share, too, in the thorny crown >of present patience and effort? Boys form their most enduring impres- , sions of girls and women, determine, as it t were, their own attitude towards the sex, Iby their experience in their own home. O£ i course it's no good pretending we caD .bo angels — we must have our squabbles, our little tempers and fallings-out — but we can honestly try to be our brightest, our purest and best witli our own brbthers. We can enter into their interests; football has iis interesting points, and even the mysteries of sails and rigging can be mastered, you know. A boy is much more likely to-play a fine honest game at football if his home circle is interested -in his style of play, and he will love his model yacht no less, and his sister much more, if she has deftly made him flags and sails that are the admiration and envy of all the other fellows. Books, 'hobbies, music, games, all present points of interest where boys and girls can so easily meet, sympathising and understanding, interested and amused. By finding those points with our own brothers, by trying for their sakes no less than our own to steer clear of meanness, gossip, and be always' loyal, truthful, and sincere, we accomplish a greater work than we knov\ The boy or the man who sincerely loves an I admires his own sisters is worth knowing and liking, and will be a knight and a champion for our sex through life. How much good, too, such friendship and comradeship with our brothers does us! Even as boys, their views are so different to ours, the side of every question which, appeals to ~them is the side we do nob see ; so that in their society we gain broader, completer views. So much for our own brothers. Now for other people's brothers. Well, I may just as well say at once that I like a girl to have plenty of boy friends in her girlhood, and men friends in her womanhood : she is far less likely to be a fiirfc or a coquette. Moreover, there is no limit to the good a girl friend, a real* friend r mind, "can do for a young fellow. She cai* be his guiding star of honour, of pure life, of loyalty. She can be his mental stimulant, educating and refining his intellectual .tastes* "keeping alive his faith in humanity, spuxring a worthy ambition to live up to noble ideals. You girls know all, I think— or much of it at any rate — on the matter of platonic affection and friendship between the sexes. I must not weary you, though I cannot refrain from reminding you that a kindly interest, a friendly welcome, a frank aivl unembarrassed conversation sometimes with a- sweet and good girl make all tha difference to a young fellow — somebody else's ■ brother, you know — especially whan > he l is away from home. So we have thought of our own brothers — God bless and keep them ! — somebody else's brothers — may their shadows never be less — and we come tc — our lovers. "It is not much the fashion to be in love," I am told. Fashion or no fashion, I hope every one of my girl friends either has been or will be "in love." I would not have us turn our hearts into a common lodging* house, where one tenant succeeds another, ami the close of one idle fancy is but the signal for another intimation that "lodgings arc to let here." My meaning is very far removed from that. I hold that a true and honest love is something- to ennoble, to purify and to enrich heart and mind alikeMoreover, we cannot all love happily Yet even an unhappy love, believe me, has ita beautiful compensations, leaves us richer,, whispers to us some of Life's most precious and most marvellous secrets. We do nofc all choose w'mAy. What if time robs us of our illusionsrand the man we loved stands revealed as poor humanity instead of halt divinity? It is nothing for us to be ashamed of There is some divinity in the poorest of vs — it was that we loved. 'Tis better to have loved and lost Than never to have loved at all. The him will shine again, another spring will dawn — some day, if we but "keep the shrine." Do you know those lines of Kipling? No? Well, here they are: KEEPING THE SHRINE. The smoke upon your altar dies, The flowers decay, The goddess of your sacrifice Has flown away; What profit, then, to sing, or slay The sacrifice from day to day? " We know the shrine is void," they caid A " The goddess flown, Yet wreaths are on the altar laid; The altar stone Is black with fumes of sacrifice, Albeit she has fled our eyes. " For it may be, if we still sing, And tend tho shrine, Some deity in wandering guise May there incline, And, finding all in order neat, Stay while we worship at her feet." There is still another matter which lie* near my heart for communion with you, ' girls ; for I think, maybe, it seems a tangled, troubled skein to some of you. Ib is not long since a girl said to me: " It's no use ; I have the best mother in tha world, everything to make me good, and yefc I cannot, I simply cannot feel religious. The more I try the more impossible it bei

TOPIC. ' ; - The advantages of a single life, contrac-lc<3 ' with its disadvantages.— Suggested by •' Coun- j try Mouse."