Oh! how dreadful it all was! How
dreadful it all is, even to remember! It would be malicious even to refer
to it, except to point out the cure.
The cure is plain. It needs no experiment to test it. Merely to mention it
ought to be enough. If human beings are so awkward at this unhappy age,
and so unhappy at this awkward age, simply because they do not know
whether they are to be treated as children or as adults, suppose we make a
rule that children are always to be treated, in point of courtesy, as if
they were adults? Then this awkward age--this period of transition from an
atmosphere of, to say the least, negative rudeness to one of gracious
politeness--disappears. There cannot be a crisis of readjustment of social
relations: there is no possibility of such a feeling; it would be hard to
explain to a young person what it meant. Now and then we see a young man
or young woman who has never known it. They are usually only children, and
are commonly spoken of as wonders. I know such a boy to-day. At seventeen
he measures six feet in height; he has the feet and the hands of a still
larger man; and he comes of a blood which had far more strength than
grace.
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