The Democratic advocate. [volume] (Westminster, Md.) 1865-1972, 1878-01-26
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 indi.
vidual, after carefully scrutinizing you
as one would an article he thought oi
purchasing, 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 in the evening
when they offer to open another blind, in
the afternoon, that you may see better
when they inquire whether you know any
thing about the superiority of the apebble'
spsctacles 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-aged people ask you to their parties,
and young people leave you out in the get
ting up Of pic MICS aud surprise visits, you
are growing old When disagreeable Aunt
Betsy tells you that she has been to see
your Cousin Sallie, and 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 realize this fact. It
is so difficult to imagine yourself ripening
for death-so difficult to comprehend fully
that if you live, you will lose your teeth,
and hair, and eye-sight and become but a
wrinkled efigy of your former self And
nothing can preserve you from old age but
death-and would you thus be 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 be-
meath the meadow daisies? And though
you, and all of us, know that Yes 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 ex-
pect time to do for you just the re-
verse of what it viii do. When your
bloom goes, and your skin becomes yell
low, you call it billiousness, and so does
your physician, who is an understand
ing man, and knows better than to
hint of age in the connection So you go
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 pufs, and pale blues, and you
cut Mr.. Silkman entirely, when he ven
lures to show brown and gray silks, as
suitable for ladies of your age" to bor-
row his expression. Somebody who
knows, says it is very hard to grow old
gracefully and it is truth; but especially
is it hard when a woman has been beauty
and belle. For, argue as we may
against the vanities of the world-and re-
iterate as we may, that beauty is only skin
deep, and of no real yaIue-we know that
it is worth ten times as much by way of
as than all the virtues and good sense.
And whenever you hear anybody say
that beauty is of no account, and pretty
faces snare, just you set it down-that
person is growing old