The Awkward Age.
The expression defines itself. At the first sound of the words, we all
think of some one unhappy soul we know just now, whom they suggest. Nobody
is ever without at least one brother, sister, cousin, or friend on hand,
who is struggling through this social slough of despond; and nobody ever
will be, so long as the world goes on taking it for granted that the
slough is a necessity, and that the road must go through it. Nature never
meant any such thing. Now and then she blunders or gets thwarted of her
intent, and turns out a person who is awkward, hopelessly and forever
awkward; body and soul are clumsy together, and it is hard to fancy them
translated to the spiritual world without too much elbow and ankle.
However, these are rare cases, and come in under the law of variation. But
an awkward age,--a necessary crisis or stage of uncouthness, through which
all human beings must pass,--Nature was incapable of such a conception;
law has no place for it; development does not know it; instinct revolts
from it; and man is the only animal who has been silly and wrong-headed
enough to stumble into it.
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