Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1885-10-03


While the good ship Sunbeam-the narrative
OF whose cruise first familiarized the non-nau-
tical world with the queer sounding phrase,
the trades, the tropics, and the roaring forties''
is cleaving her way through Scandinavian
waters, the feminine representatives of the last
of these categories are having, each in her own
way, high old time of it on shore. The late
summer or autumnal holiday is the chosen
period of the British matron in her more az
gressive or pronounced shape. The completion
of the tenth luster marks, it has been happily
said, the old age OF youth, even as the addition
OF another decade introduces US to the youth of
old age With the entrance upon the fifties hui
man beings OF both sexes, especially of the sex
called fair, emerge into an atmosphere of tran
guilty and resignation quite unknown to the
roaring forties, when the struggle between youth
maturity, advancing in its decadence, Is still at
its height. For women there could be no more
blusterous PERIOD and where are the wives and
daughters Of England to be found who have
ever passed the RubicOn without q series of
heroic efforts, worthy OF true amazons, against
the encroaching tactics Of time? With men-or
perhaps we shall be told that it is the fond de-
fusion born of the complacence of the incor-
rgible male-the case is somewhat different.
Forty years is the proverbial age of wisdom.
or is il the obliquity of the male critics vision
that is alone responsible for the impression?-
acquires with more difficulty and by slower
gracefully to the advance of age. Forty and
philosophy are not with her, If it be permissi-
BILE to say 80, convertible terms. Instead OF in
portal, and welcoming him as if he were O
friend, she lifts the bugle to her lips and blows
a shriil note Of defiance. Her one idea is to
proclaim that the summers and winters which
have passed over her head have left no mark
behind, have not impaired her vigor, have not
diminished in the slightest degree her capacity
for enjoyment.
The roaring forties are, therefore, as natural a
stage In her development as the cynical forties
matron, to speak of her in the most circumspect
and courteous Language, will not demean herself
by succumbing: She insists on being en- eridence
that middle age can and ought to be as full of
noise and heat as tomboyhoOd in its most viva
cious phase. She has sons and daughters who
are grown up and perhaps settled in life. There
are certain just now to be boys and girls home
tor the holidays who grudge every moment
that they cannot devote to some form of ath-
letic exercise No one appreciates these muscu
lar instincts better than the mother who has
well advanced into the roaring forties. She
the fortitude with which she undertakes a
series OF bodily labors, lawn tennis, riding,
the capacity she displays for locomotion from
are half dozen fields for the display of the per-
ennial juvenility which is one Of the attributes
Of the roaring forties outside the strictly do
ietes. A little later there will be
s Of the
tunities peculiarly favorable for the exercise OF
the virtues inherentin the more highly Favored
forms of British matrondom. We are, too, on
the eve OF a general election, and the roaring
fOrties have their acntely political aspect Their
political sympathies are not restricted to either
vanced liberal side. The most impressive attri.
butte of the period of womanIy existence now
spoken of is its earnestness. at does not seem
so long ago." exclailns some matron-a we'll
grown blonde, with square face; decision, as
we'll as years, indicated in the lines about the
mouth, with q light gray eye, which would like
tn hpc NIL n al fir<osx r{t ~
folding her arms across her bosom, or in her
more animated moments, OF leaning forward
and gesticulating wildly, 'it does not" this re-
voice Of strident volume, "seem so long ago.
that her pleasure lay in pictures and music,
society, dissipation and other toilies and frivol.
ties. But all this is over. The proper business
for the roaring forties Is the emancipation OF
women, the organization Of party that will,
according to the religious or irreligiOus views Oi
the speaker Christianize the world, or else put
Christianity to shame as an imposture.