period come in? Between
childhood, we say, and maturity; it is the transition from one to the
other. When human beings, then, are neither boys nor men, girls nor women,
they must be for a few years anomalous creatures, must they? We might,
perhaps, find a name for the individual in this condition as well as for
the condition. We must look to Du Chaillu for it, if we do; but it is too
serious a distress to make light of, even for a moment. We have all felt
it, and we know how it feels; we all see it every day, and we know how it
looks.

What is it which the child has and the adult loses, from the loss of which
comes this total change of behavior? Or is it something which the adult
has and the child had not? It is both; and until the loss and the gain,
the new and the old, are permanently separated and balanced, the awkward
age lasts. The child was overlooked, contradicted, thwarted, snubbed,
insulted, whipped; not constantly, not often,--in many cases, thank God,
very seldom. But the liability was there, and he knew it; he never forgot
it, if you did. One burn is enough to make fire dreaded. The adult, once
fairly recognized as adult, is not overlooked, contradicted, thwarted,
snubbed, insulted, whipped; at least, not with impunity. To this
gratifying freedom, these comfortable exemptions, when they are once
established in our belief, we adjust ourselves, and grow contentedly
good-mannered. To the other _regime_, while we were yet children, we also
somewhat adjusted ourselves, were tolerably well behaved, and made the
best of it. But who could bear a mixture of both? What genius could rise
superior to it, could be itself, surrounded by such uncertainties?

No wonder that your son comes into the room with a confused expression of
uncomfortable pain on every feature, when he does not in the least know
whether he will be recognized as a gentleman, or overlooked as a little
boy. No wonder he sits down in his chair with movements suggestive of
nothing but rheumatism and jack-knives, when he is thinking that perhaps
there may be some reason why he should not take that particular chair, and
that, if there is, he will be ordered up.

No wonder that your tall daughter turns red, stammers, and says foolish
things on being courteously spoken to by strangers at dinner, when she is
afraid that she may be sharply contradicted or interrupted, and remembers
that day before yesterday she was told that children should be seen and
not he