The River Falls journal. (River Falls, Pierce County, Wis.) 1857-1861, 1858-03-10
GROWING OLD.
To be read in private.
From THE EpISBURGH JOURNAL.

y
impossible to realize-at least to ourselves
In others, we can see its approach clear
er; yet event then we are slow to @recog-
nize it. What, Miss So-and-so looking
old-did you say? Impossible: she is
quite young person; only a year older
than land that would make her just
~. Bless me !. I an forgetting how
time goes on. Yes,-with faint dep
recation that truth forbids you to contra
diet, and politeness to notice-''I suppose
we are neither of us so Young as we us
ed to be-" rt-r T-
Without doubt, it is a trying crisis in
a woman's life "a single woman's partic-
ularly-when she begins to suspect she is
''not so young as she used to be- that,
after crying Wolf ever since the ma
turity Of seyenteen-as some yonng la
dies are fon'l of doing to the extreme a
musement of their friends-the grim wolf,
old age, is actually showing his teeth in
the distance; and no courteous blindness
on the part of these said friends, no alar-
med indifference on her own, can neutral
ize the fact that he is, if still far of, in
sight. And, however charmingly poet
ical he may appear to sweet fourteen-and
a-half who writes melancholy verses a.
bout 81 wish l were againa child,' or
merry-three- and-twenty, who preserves
in silver paper, "my first gray hair old
age, viewed as a near approaching reality
is-quite another thing.
To feel that you have had your fair
half at least of the ordinary term of years
allotted to mortals; that you have no liylt
to expect to be any bandsomer, or stron-
ger, or happier than you are now. That
you have climbed to the summit of life,
whence the next step must necessarily be
decadcnce; ny, though you do not feel it
though the air may be rs fresh and the
view as grand-still, you know that it is
so. Slower or faster, you are going down
hill. To those who go down "hanl-in-
hand" -... .-
"And sleep thegitber at the foot"
it may tie safer and sweeter descent;
but | am writing for those who have to
make the descent alone.
1t is not pleasant descent at the begin
ming. When you find at parties that you
are not asked to dance as much as for
merly, and your partners are chiefly stout
middle-aged gentlemen and slim lads who
blush terribly, and require great deal
of drawing out; when you are ''dear-"ed
and patronized by stylish young ehits,
who were in their cradles when you were
q grown woman; or when some boy who
was your plaything in petticoats, has the
lmpeTUneilce W iooh O'0i yO"i HN'N'
bearded and grand, Oh. even to consult
YOU on his love affairs. When servants
address you as Ma'am, instead of Miss:
and if you are at all stout and comforta-
bic looking, strange shopkeepers persist
in making out your bills to ''Mrs. Blank"
and pressing upon your notice toys and
persmbulators. f
Rather trying, too, when in speaking
of yourself as ''girl"-which, from long
habit, you unwittingly do-you detect a
covert smile on the face of your interlocu-
tor: or, led by chance excitement to de
port yourself in an ultra-youthful manner
some instinct warns you that you are ma
king yourself ridiculous. Or, catching
in some strange looking glass the face
that YOU are too familiar with to notice
much, ordinarily, you suddenly become
aware that it is not a young face: that it
will never be young face again; that it
will gradually alter and alter, until the
known face of your girlhood, whether
plain or pretty, loved or disliked, admir-
ed or despised, will have altogether van
ished-nay, is vanished; look as you
will, you cannot see it any more. ~
There is no denying the fact, and it
ought to silence many an ill-natured re-
mark upon ssmutton-dressed lamb-fashion
Young ladies of certain age, and the
like-that with most people the passing
from maturity to middle age is so gradual
as to be almost imperceptihle to the IN
dividual concerned. 1t is very difficult
for woman to recognize that she is grow
ing old; and to many--nay, to all more
more or less.-this recognition can but be
fraught with considerable pain. Even
the most frivolous aresomewhat to be pit
led when not conducting themselves a.
passes, because they really do not think
it, they expose themselves to all manner
of r,isoonstruction by still determinedly