The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1856-1888, 1881-12-31
Women at Fifty.
October, 1881

1t is absolutely untrue that. under tolerably fair
conditions, u woman is (f we may repeat the crude
phrase) - played out - when she has seen forty
five. If all goes well, or even not very i'll,
a woman takes a new departure at about fifty.
1t is preposterous TO assume that a woman of
mature age is likely to be behind her growing
daughters, or her growing sons, in effectiveness
of intellect, in aptitude for subjects = new or
old, in general brightness and susceptibility. In
what might be termed quality in the French
sense OF the word. she is, upon the suppositions
We have just made, so much the superior being,
that IT the daughters, and the sons, too, do not
feel it, there is something wrong with them.
1t is the mistake of giddy adolescence, or sand
blind %conceit, to suppose that Il woman OF fifty
cannot be exquisitively beautiful, cannot COM
mand a man throughout the whole range Of bis
nature cannot take up all the gladness of life,
and beautifully rebate it again, for him and for
others. In all this we are, OF course, leaving out,
with a sad heart, the miserable life Of the very
poor. But even with the poor the general rule
holds, and among them some of the pleasantest,
brightest, handsomest women are women of adj
yanced maturity, but released from the pressure
of the cares and tolls which young children
bring. Such women may even be observed to
take a fresh start in mental growth they read
more, and, mixing more with men, pick up
general knowledge, and become more agreeable
companions than ever. These remarks become
more strikingly true as we carry our eyes up
wards in the scale of money and culture. Rahel,
who was always i'll, wrote at fifty years of age
that she felt in most particulars just as she did at
fourteen or fifteen that she had, on the whole,
the same opinions and inclinations as at thirty,
only that the background of her life was richer
with gathered experience and well-cOnnected
thought. She laid stress upon the connectedness
meaning, no doubt, that she could take BIRDS
eye views better than in earlier life and she adds
that at her ripe age a joyful yearning or tendency
to look forward bad sprung up in her. which was
81, - AE 2aHD .F 81. IL - arI
course, every woman IS not Rahel, but it was GER
tainly no fault of hers to expect too much of the
young why, she asks, should they believe the
old? Wrinkles are no testimony. F." No but
one may add that they can believe :. for the
works sake, and in spite OF prejudice Of near
ness, apprehend a little of what RaheI meant: and
what Is ~exemplifed in the lives and letters of
numbers of women of ripe age. Not to quite
other ladies of great ability and culture, take u
very Ignorant ole country dame, William God
wins mother. She puts - succages - for sausa-
ges, and had, on a whole, a hide-bound sort of
but what wise, hearty, lively. penetra-
ting letters she writes The cold Goodwin, him
forty-fve, says at her death that he felt as If
he had now no one to counsel him and take care
him. But to 90 to a type common enough,
between Dame burden and Rahel. take
the mother of Frederick, in Mr.. Coventry Pat
nore's 50 Faithful for Ever you may meet her
my day in ordinary society. Nothing can be
more beautifully wise than her letters and
.hough it is true that a poet writes the ~felicltous
.hIngs for her, yet the poet has something OF
8 truthfulness. Such a lady had no
need to ask for liberation from clever young peo-
Die. But to pass to another point.
What did Geraint do for his wife Enid d? .IHe
d Der with sweet observances and wor-
hip. 1t is one recOmpense for the many draw
JACKS OF cIVilisatiOn that it has increased our
,ower of doing for women what this rough knight
nd Tor the lady. and seems likely to increase it
till more. That the beauty, as well as the
ealth, OF women should be kept, and to the
Utmost possible stretch of years, is no fantastic
bJect and 1t must be remembered that what is {
omlnally good health may be separated from the ;
eauty. There is something in the old. proven
ial phrase of" beauty-sleep that is 10 say,
lore sleep, or, to put it broadly, more restfulness
{ life, is required for beauty than ~sufices for =
are health. This we must not forget. Much help 8
as been brought to the lives of women by what G
'lence has taught US as to the care Of children. q
there no danger that this and other benefits v
lOuld be partially neutral;sed by new exaction f
other lines? There is, of course, plenty Of
lleness, with v%acuity and dissipation to spare
ut the ideal we set before us for women has,
rely, too much drive, stretch, and worry in it..
and young PEOPLE past childhood, are {
lqnestionably suffering from the sudden pressure -
the new regimen, and they lose bloom Of soul ,
Gch earlier than old-lasbiOned folks can bear to II
ink of. Scientific ladies-some of them. at all f
ents-are apt to put down these criticisms as b
ere fancy but it is to be hoped that the women IL
ctors will not take the hard-headed view of .
Oh topics, so far as they concern women. There .
some fear of this, however. And even what is u
etc IN our lives, in the new mood of ciViIisation, L
tn regard to women, has something strained h
d artificial, perhaps essentially low and i~rrever- Ct
t, about it. But we must take care-high and h
lder care-oi all natural springs Of gladness in
e. If we tap these in haste or levity, no Gull "
re, and no aesthetic %trickery, will help us. ro
al