The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1869-01-26

left. her figure is still good-not slim and
slender certainly, but round and soft and
with that slower, riper lazier grace which is
something quite different from the antelope
like elasticity of youth, and in its own
way as lovely. II her hair has lost its
maiden luxurianoe, she makes up with crafty
arrangements of lace, which are almost as
picturesque as the fashionable wisp of hay
like ends tumbling halfway to the waist.
She has still her white and shapely hands
with their pink filbert-like nails; still her
pleasant smile and square small teeth; her
eyes are bright yet, and if the upper muscles
are little shrunk, the consequent apparent
enlargement of the orbit only makes them
more expressive; her lips are not yet withered,
her skin is not wrinkled. Undeniably, when
well dressed and in favorable light, the
mature siren is as beautiful in her own way
as the girlish belle, and the world knows it
and acknowledges it.
That mature sirens can be passionately
loved, even when very mature, history gives
us more than one example; and the first name
that naturally occurs to ones mind as the
type of this is that of the too famous Ninon de
pEnclos. And Ninon, If a trife mythical, was
yet fact and an example. But not going
quite to Ninon's age, we often see women OF
forty and upwards who are personally charm
ing, and whom men love with as much
warmth and tenderness as if they were in the
mirers by dozens, and who end by making
superb marriage and having quite an Indian
summer of romance and happiness. The
young laugh at this idea of the Indian summer
for bride of forty-fve; but it is true; for nei-
ther romance nor happiness, neither love nor
mental youth, is matter of years; and after
all we are only as old as we feel, and certainly
no older than we look. All women do not
harden by time, nor wither, nor yet
corrupt. Some merely ripen and mellow and
get enriched by the passage OF the years, re-
| tanning the most delicate womanliness-we
had almost said girlishness-int quite old
! age, and blushing under their grey hairs while
they shrink from anything coarse or vulgar or
impure as sensitively as when they were girls.
La femme qaarGnte ans is the French term for
the opening of the great gulf beyond which
love cannot pass; but human history disproves
this date, and shows that the heart can remain
| fresh and the person lovely long after the age
fixed for the final adieu to admiration, and
that the mature siren can be adored by her
own contemporaries when the rising genera
ton regard her as nothing better than a
chimney corner fixture. Mr.. Trollope has re-
cognized the claims of the mature siren in his
! "Orley Farm and "Miss Mackenzie" and no
one can deny the intense naturalness of the
| characters and the interest of the stories.
Another point with the mature woman is
that she is not jealous nor exactipg. She
| knows the world and takes what comes with
the philosophy that springs from knowledge.
If che is of an enjoying nature-and she can
| not be syren else-she accepts such good as
floats .sto the top without looking too deep
into the cup and speculating on the time when
she shall have drained it to the dregs. Men
feel safe with her. If they have entered on a
tender friendship with her, they know that
| there will be no scene, no tears, no upbraid-
ings, when an inexorable fate comes in to end
| oil
wife as the scene-shifter. The mature siren
knows so we'll that fate and the wife must
! break in between her and her friend, that she
! is resigned from the first to what is fore
doomed, and so accepts her bitter portion,
when it comes, with dignity and in silence.
! Where younger women would fall into hyste-
RIGS and make scene, perhaps 60 about the
world taking their revenge in slander, the
middle aged woman holds out friendly hand,
and takes the back seat gallantly, never
showing. by word or look that she has
felt her deposition. She becomes the best
friend of the new household; and, il
any one is jealous, ten to one ii is the husband
that is Jealous of her love for his wife, or per.
| haps il is the wife herself, who cannot see
what her husband can find to admire SO much
in Mrs. A, and who pouts at his extrsordi
nary prediction for her, though of course
she would scorn to be jealous-as, indeed, she
has no cause. For even mature siren, how
ever delightful she may be, is not likely tc
come before young wife in the heart Of 6
young husband. Though the French paint
the love of a woman of forty as pathetic, be-
cause slightly ridiculous and certainly hope
less, yet they arrange the theory of theil
social life so that youth is generally sup
posed to make his first love of a married wO.
man many years his elder, and a mature siren
finds her last love in youth. We have moi
come to this yet in England, either in theory
or practice; and it is to be hoped that We
never shall come to it. Mature sirens are
all very we'll for men of their own age anG
it is pleasant to see them still loved and ad
mired, ard to recognize in them the claim!
of women to something higher thar
mere personal passion; but the case would bt
very different il they became ghoulish seducer
of the young, and kept up the habit of low
by entapgling boyish hearts and blightinl
youthful lives. AS they are now, they form
a charming element in society, and are o
infinite use to the world. They are the rip
fruit in the garden where else everything
would be green and immature-the last day
OF the golden summer just before the chills O
autumn come on; they contain in themselve
the advantages of two distinct epoohs, ant
while possessing as much personal charm a
youth, possess also the gains which come b,
experience and maturity. They keep thing
together as the young alone could no do; an
no gathering of friends is perfect which ha
not one or two mature sirens to give the tom
to the rest and prevent excesses. The
, soften the asperities of high-handed boy
and girls, which else would be too biting
and they set people at ease, and make ther
in good humor with themselves, by th
, courtesy with which they listen to them, an
the patience with which they bear with them