But there were other signs besides these, signs that the youth had had his eyes wide open to certain difficulties which beset the matrimonial state and to the conventional steps which lead to it, and that he had thought quite soberly, if not altogether wisely upon them.
The writer was verdant, to be sure, and self-conscious, and partial in his view of the relations of the sexes, but there was withal a serious purpose in the writing.

He meant to expose and correct what he conceived to be reprehensible conduct on the part of the gentler sex, bad feminine manners.

Just now he sees the man's side of the shield, a few years later he will see the woman's side also.

He ungallantly concludes "to lead the '_single life_,' and not," as he puts it, "trouble myself about the ladies." A most sapient conclusion, considering that this veteran misogynist was but sixteen years old.

During the year following the publication of this article, he plied his pen with no little industry--producing in all fifteen articles on a variety of topics, such as "South American Affairs," "State Politics," "A Glance at Europe," etc., all of which are interesting now chiefly as showing the range of his growing intelligence, and as the earliest steps by which he acquired his later mastery of the pen and powerful style of composition.