Special Gifts, Devices, and Techniques : Page 123

Young men and women approaching the courting age indulge in an unbelievable amount of painful banter. It is as if Beelzebub inspired their teasing. When a new hat means so much to a girl, a boy will manifest his cleverness by saying, "Look at the gargoyle she acquired — they must have seen her coming." Many a coat or a dress, which cost a girl's father much hard-earned money, has been forever soured for a girl because of the thoughtless uncomplimentary teasing of some young conversational galoot. Having noticed it again and again, and most bitterly regretted some guilt of it in myself, I am sometimes inclined to explain this fearful plague in young people's talk as a sort of God-permitted prophylactic against their falling too violently and multiplicably in love with one another. As it is, their nature and impulses keep drawing them together, but their uncivil tongues, their "razzing" and teasing, keep them apart.