The Potter journal. [volume] (Coudersport, Pa.) 1857-1872, 1858-05-13

cEltS, who were III their cradles when you
were grown woman; or when some boy,
who was your plaything in petticoats, has
the i'll pertinence to look over your head,
bearded and grand, or even to consult you
on his love affairs. When you find your
acquaintance delicately abstaiDing from
the term old maid in your presence, or
Immediately qualifying it by an eager
panegyric on the solitary sisteThood. When
servants address you as Ma'am' instead
Of Miss; and if you are at all stout and
comfortable-l looking, strange shopkeepers
persist in making out your bills to Mrs
Blank and pressing upon your notice
toys aud perambulators.
"Rather trying, too, when in speaking
Of yourself as 'girl-which, from a long
habit, you unwittingly do-you detect
smile on the face OF your interlocutor; or,
led by chance excitement to deport your
self in an ultra-youthful manner, some in
stinct warns you that you are making
yourself ridiculous. Or, catching in some
strange looking-gass the face that you are
too familiar with to notice much, ordina-
rily, you suddenly become aware that it
is no5 young face; that it will never be
a young face Ggain !; that it will gradually
alter and alter, until the known face of
your girlhood, whether plain Or pretty,
loved or disliked, admired OF despised, will
have altogether vanished--nay, is vanish
ed lock 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 mutton dressed lamb-fashion,
young ladies' Of certain age and the
likc-that with most people the passing
from maturity to middle age is 50 gradual
as to be almost imperceptible to the indi-
vidual concerned. 1t is very difficult for
a woman to recognise that she is growing
old and to many-nay, to all more or less
=, his recognition cannot but be fraught
with considerable pain. Even the most
frivolous are somewhat to be pitied, when,
not conducting themselves as passes, be-
cause they really do not think it, they ex-
pose themselves to all manner of miscon-
structions by still determinedly grasping
that fair sceptre Of youth, which they new
er suspect is now the nlerest rag Of sove-
eignty-sovereignty deposed
"Nor can the mast sensible woman
fairly put aside her youth, all it has en-
joyed, or lost, or missed-its hopes and
interests, omissions and commissions, do
ings and suiferings-satiSfed that it is
henceforth to be considered entirely as
thing gone by without momentary
spasm Of the heart, Young people forget
this as completely as they forget that they
themselves may one day experience the
same, or they would not be so ready to
laugh at even the foolshest Of those fool
ish old virgins, who deems herselfjuvenile
long after everybody else has ceased to
share in the pleasing delusion, and there
by makes both useless aud ridiculous that
season OF early autumn which ought TO be
the most peaceful, abundant, safe, and Sa-
cred time in a woman's whole existence.
They would not, with the proYerbial harsh
Judgment Of youth, scoTn SO cruelty those
poor little absurdities, of which the un-
lucky person who INDUCES therein is pro-
badly quite unaware-mereiy dresses as
she has always done, aud carries on the
harmless cOquetrieS and nlinaudcrteS of
her teens; unconscious how exceedingly
ludicrous they appear in lady of-say
forty Yet in this sort of exhibition,
which society too often sees and enjoys,
any honest heart cannot but often feel that
OF all the actors engaged in it, the one who
plays the least Objectionable and disgrace
full part is she who only makes fool of
herself.
"Yet why should she do it? Why
cling so desperately to the youth that will
not stay and which, after all, is not such
a very precious or even happy thing 3?
Why give herself such world of trouble
to deny Or conceal her exact age, when
half her acquaintance Hust either know
it or guess it, or be supremely Indifferent
about it? Whyappear dressed-undress-
ed, cYnics would say-after the pattern Of
her niece, the belle OF the bali annoying
the eye with beauty either half withered,
or long overblown, and which in its prime
would have been all the ioYelier for more
ooncealmeut?
:" In this matter of dress, word or
two. There are two styles of costume
which ladies past their premiere Jeunesse
are most prone to fall into: one hardly
knows which is the worst Perhaps, tho' !,
it is the ultra juyeni!e-such as the in
sane juxtaposition of yellow skin and
white tarlatane, or the anomalous adorn-
ing of gray hair with artificial flowers 1t
may be questioned whether at any age be-
you'd twenty q ball-costume is really be-
coming; but after thirty, it is the very
last sort Of attire that lady can assume
with impunity It is said that you can
only make yourself look younger by tress-
Jag iittie cider than you real : are; and
tsu!y | have seen Many 4 woman loo&
withered aud cid ia the customary even
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