Democrat and sentinel. [volume] (Ebensburg, Pa.) 1853-1866, 1858-05-05
ON FEMALE GROWING
OLD.

s - -
| THE following venturous essay on the most |
delicate of subjects is from Cham6ers' Ed |
inburgh Journal.
Growing old A time we talk of, and !
jest or moralize over, but find almost impos- /
sibleto realize-at least to.ourselves In 9th |
ers. we can see the approach clearer; yet |
even then we are slow to recognize it, What,
Miss so-and-iso looking cid did you say p
Impossible she is quite young person /; on
/ ls a year s-elder than land that would
make her just. Bless me! am for
getting how time goes on. Yes-with
faint depreciation which truth forbids you to
contradict, and politeness to notiee-'I sup
pose we are neither of us so young as we
used to be-
Without doubt, it is a trying crisis in a
woman's hfe-a single woman's particularly
when she begins to suspect she is mot so
young as she used to be , that after crying
! Wolf ever since the respectable maturity of
seventeen-as some young ladies are so fond
of doing, to the extreme amusement of their
friends the grim wolf, old age. is actually
f showing his teeth in the distance and no
courteous blindness on the part of these said
friends, no alarmed indifference on her own,
can neutralize the fact that he is, If still far
, off, In sight And, however charnngly po
: etical he may appear to sweet fourteen-and-a
half, who writes melancholy verses about L
wish [ were again child or merry three
f and-twenty, who preserves in silver paper
my first gray hair. oldag viewed as a near
S approaching reality, is-quite another thing.
| To feel that you have had your fair half
at least of the ordinary term of years allotted
o to mortals; that you have no right to expect
to be any handsomer, or stronger, or happi-
4 er than you nov; that you have climbed
f to the summit of life, whence the next step
s must necessarily be decadence ay, though
you do not feel Though the air may be as
$ fresh, and the view as grand-still you know
that it is so. Slower or faster, you are go
! ing down hill. TO those who go hand-in-
! hand,
i And sleep thegither at the foot,
> it may be a safer and sweeter descent; but
l. am writing for those who have to make th,
e descent alone.
er 1t is not pleasant descent at the begin
Sc ming. When you find at parties that you ar
s. not asked to dance as much as formerly, ant
C your partners are chiefly stout, middle-aget
lie gentlemen and slim lads who blush terribly
and require great deal of drawing out :
"a when you are dear ed and patronised b.
er stylish young chits who were in their cradle
or when you were grown woman: or whel
MS some boy. who was your plaything In petit
ay coats, has the impertinence to look over you
e. head, bearded and grand, or even to consul
you on his love affairs. When you find you
he acquaintance delicately abstaining from th
be term old maid in your presence, or immed
be ately qualifying it by an eager panegyric 0
he the sisterhood When servants address yo
INT as MAJ NJ instead of Miss : and if you al
20 at all stout and comfortable-looking, strang
he shopkeepers persist in making out your bill
ne to Mrs. Blank, and pressing upon your NJ
ere tice toys and perambulators.
us Rather trying, too, when in speaking
'ne yourself as 'girr-which, from long hab
eo you unwittingly do-you detect cove
en smile on the face of your interlocutor or, le
'o- by chance excitement to deport yourself in q
ultra youthful manner, some instinct war;
= you that you are making yourself rldleulou
70 Or, catching in some strange looking -gla
ass the face that you are too familiar with to n
or tice much, ordinarily, you suddenly secon
the aware that it is not young face that it W
er- never be young face again; and it W
". gradually alter and alter, until the know
md face of your girlhood. whether plain or pre-
Tho ty, loved or disliked admired or despisc
ave will have altogether vanished nay, is va
sy ished look you will you cannot see it al
md There is no denying the fact, and it oug
our to silence many an ill-natured remark up
can mutton dressed lamb fashion, young ladi
nth of certain age and the hke-that WI
per most people the passing from maturity
i middle age is so gradual as to be almost II
perceptible to the individual concerned
is very difficult for woman to recognize th
ing she is growing old; and to nany-nay,
az all more or less-this recognition cannot
;tor be fraught with considerable pain. Even
ery most frivolous are somewhat to be pitie
the when, not conducting themselves as pdsse
we because they really do not think if, they G
s.s pose themselves to all manner of misconstr
like tions by still determinedly grasping that ia
men sceptre of youth. which they never suspect
the now the mcrest rag of sovereignty
al, ant eighty deposed. :.
"sh Nor can the most sensible woman tai
put aside her youth, all ithas enjoyed, or ie