The Baltimore County union. [volume] (Towsontown, Md.) 1865-1909, 1877-04-14
Growing Old.

When people begin to tell you how young you
look, you may be sure you are growing old.
When you meet some one whom you knew years
ago. and that individual, after carefully scrutniz-
ing you as one would an article he thought of pur
chasing, exclaiming:
"Well, really Time has stood still with you:-
I guess you don't let things worry you. 1t is
worry that wrinkles us up more than years" then
you may know that you are growing old.
When your friends ask you to sit nearer the
light evenings-when they offer to open another
blind, in the afternoon, that you may see better
about your sewing-when they inquire if you knew
anything about the superiority of the "pebble''
spectacles over the glass ones-then realize that
you are no longer young.
When spruce young dentists send you their cir
culars, containing list of their charges for the
various grades of false teeth, know from it that
you are growing old.
When middle-agcd people ask you to their par
ties, and young people leave you out in tho get
ting up of pic-nics, and surprise visits, you are
| growing old.
When disagreeable Aunt Betsy tells you that
she never saw how "dried-up" and "puckery"
Sallie does look, and adds the information that
you and Sallie are one years children, you are
growing old.
And, generally, you are the very last one to re-
aize this fact.
1t is so difficult to imagine yourself rpening for
death--so difficult to comprehend fully that if you
live, you will lose your teeth, and hair, and eye
sight, and become but wrinkled efigy of your
former self.
And nothing can preserve you from old age but
death-and would you be thus preserved?
1t is almost impossible for you to imagine the
world going on without you.
Will the sunshine, and the soft air sweep down
from the hills, and the birds sing, and the pure
waters leap along between verdant banks, when
your dull eyes are closed beneath the meadow
daisies?
is the answer to the question, we never entirely
realize it.
When your hair begins to get thin, you lay the
blame on headache, or the care of the children,
and you invest in restorers, and pOmatums, and
fondly expect time to do for you just the reverse
of what it will do.
When your bloom goes, and your skin becomes
yellow, you call it billiousness and so does your
physician, who is an understanding man, and
knows better than to hint of age in the connection
So you 60 on cherishing the fond delusion that,
though the family record might suggest otherwise,
you are really just as young as you ever were, and
you go on wearing pinks, and puffs, and pale
blues, and you cut Mr.. Silkman entirely when he
ventures to show you brown and gray silks, as
Suitable for ladies ofyour age" to borrow his ex
preston.
Somebody who knows, says it is very hard to
grow old gracefully; and it is truth but especial
ly is it hard when a woman has been a beauty and
a belle.
For, argue as we may against the vanities of
the world-and reiterate it we may, that beauty
is only skin deep, and of no real value-we know
that it is worth ten times as much by way of cap
ital than all the virtues and good sense.
And whenever you hear anybody say that beau
ty is of no account and pretty faces snare, just
you set it down-that person is growing old