Wheeling daily intelligencer. [volume] (Wheeling, Va. [W. Va.]) 1852-1859, 1858-04-09
[TO Be READ IN pnrvArE,l
on FEMALES GROWING OLD.

ION FEMALES GROWING OLD.
The following venturous essay on the most
delicate ofsubjectsis from Chambers Edinburgh
Journal;
'.Growing old. A time we talk of and Jest
or moralize over; but find almost impossible TO
realiZe--at least to ourselves. In others we can
see its approach clearer; yet even then we are
slow TO recognize it. what. Miss-sO-and-so
looking Old-did you say? Impossible: she
is quite young person; only older than
and that would make her just. Yes,
with faint depreciation which truth forbids
you TO contradict, and politeness to nOtice-I
suppose neither of US so young as We
used to be-
''Without doubt, it is a trying crisis in a
woman's lfe-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 fond Of doing, TO the cx.
treme amusement 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 alarmed indiifer-
ence on her own, can neutralize the fact that he
is, If still far off, in sight. And, however char
mingly poetical he may appear to sweet four
Fteen-and-a-half, who writes melancholy verses
about I wish 7 were again child or merry
Internationally, who preserves in silver paper
my first gray hair, old age, viewed as n near
inpproaehing reality, is-Quite another thing
'"Fo feel that you have had your fair half Mt
least of the ordinary term Of years allotted to
mortals; that you have no right to expect to be
any handsOmer, or stronger, or happier than
You are now; that yon have climbed to the
summit of life, whence the next step iuust ne
cessarily be decadencc; ny, though you do not
feel it-thOugh the air may be as fresh, and the
view as grand-still, you know that it is So
Slower or fnster. you are going down hill To
those who go hand in hand,
'And sleep thegither at the foot"
il may be a safer and sweeter descent; but am
writing for those who have TO make the descent
alone.
at is not pleasant descent at the beginning
| When you find at parties that you not asked
to dance as much as formerly, and your part
ners are briefly stout, middlc-aged gentlemen
and slim lads who blush terribly, and require
great deal of driving out; when you are dear
ed and patrOnZed by stylish young Chits, who
were in their cradles when YOU were grown
woman; or when some boy, who was your play
thing in petticUats, has the impeTtinence to look
over your head, bearded and grand, or even to
consult you on his love affairs. When you find
your acquaintance delicately abstaining from
the tern. odd maid,' in your presence, or immc-
diately qualifying II by eager panegyTic on
/ the solitary sisterhOOd. When servants address
You ae 'Ma'am' instead Of Miss; and If you are
at all stout and comfortable.lOOking, strange
shOpkeeperS persist in making out your bills to
toys and preambulatOrs.
"Rather crying, too, when speaking Of your
self as a 'girl'-which, from long habit, you
unwittingly do-yOu detect a convert smile on
the face Of your interlocutor; or, led by chance
excitement To dcport yourself in an n-yOuth-
full manner, some instinct warns You that you
are making yourself ridiculous. Or, catching
in some strange looking glass the face that you
are too familiar with to notice much ordinarily,
IyOu suddenly become aware that it IS not
a young face; that it will never be young face
again; that it will gradually alter, until the
known face of your girlhOod. whether plain or
pretty, loved or disliked, admired or desPised,
will have altogether vanished-nay, is van
ished: look you viii, you cannot see it any
more.
.Thers is no denying the fact, and it ought
to silence many an iI-nAtured remark upon
CERTAIN age and the like-tliat with most
people the passing from maturity To middle age
is so gradual as to be almost imperceptible to
the individual concerned. Il is very difficult
for woman to recognise that she is growing
old, and TO Inany-nay, to all more or less
this recognition cannot but be fraught with CON
siderable pain. Even the most frivolous are
lsomeW hat 10 be pitied, when, not conducting
themselves as p0saers. because they really do
not think it, they expose themselves TO al man
ier of demonstrations by still determinedly
graspiug that fair scCptre Cf vonth, which they
lneVer suspect is now the mercst rag Of sOyer-
Notwithstanding dePOsed.
NNor can the most sensible woman fairly put
aside her youth, all it has enjoyed or lost, or
missed-its hopes and interests, emissions and
commissions, doings and nfierings-saiisfietI
that It is henceforth 10 be considered entirely as
a thing gone by-withOut mGnentary spaSm
Of the heart. Young people forget this as COM
pletely as they forget that they themselves may
one day experience the same, or they would not
be 80 ready TO lnugh at even the foolishest Of
Those foolish old virgins who deems herself ia-