The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1890-11-26

/
Youth Ali Too SOON.
Copyright by American Press Association.l
From time immemorial it has been as
serted that women grew cid far faster
than men. & woman at 20 is, it is said,
passee. A man at 40 IS often handsomer
than in youth, and his feelings are as
fresh as at %.
1.-THE cases are reversed nowadays"
remarked brilliant woman at a social
gathering recently. Women are yust
beginning to live at s.. They scarcely
attain to their belleships till TO-"
This was, of course, only a clever mot,
but it could not have been made had it
not been true that women were never so
strong, SO healthful or so happy as at
present and here. They never under
stood SO well the truth of the poets say
ing:
The richest OF al lords IS use,
And rudy health the l-f.iest muse.
The reason is because they have never
had so much freedom as in the Nine
teenth century, and there is no land
where this freedom is conceded so gen.
I orally as III our own favored America.
Freedom, in the true sense of the word,
! agrees with men and women, as it does
with everything that grows.
But though this is true Of the women
of the highest culture, of those who may
/ be called the representative women, the
| fact remains that there are still thou
sands and thousands of their sisters who
are growing old long before their time.
They are aging at 30: stupidity homely
and uninteresting If not chronic inva-
lids at 40; infirin at 80. and deaf, blind,
or halt, perhaps dead, shortly afterward.
These women may be well to do and
fairly educated. They are often pious.
They mean well, but they do not know
how to bring things to pass. They
would like to keep their youthful feel
ings and enjoy life at 40 as they ought
to far more than at 20, but they do not
know how. Very likely they do not
think such a thing possible.
These women constantly adorn the
outside. They apply vaseline to their
wrinkles, and their crimping pins more
assiduously than ever to their hair, as
they see the creases and the silver
threads gathering Poor simpletons!
Your genuine clever woman knows bet
ter than this. She knows that You can
no more beat back age with these fimsy
devices than you can cure a skin disease
by outward applications, or thana comet
can be stopped by papal bull She
knows that if the inside be right women
will look well, as Mr.. Ruslzin says, in
ways Of which they have no conception.
The New York correspondents have
been latterly charging upon the grow
ing part which physical exercise plays in
the lives of modern society women. 1t
is the latest ''fad" among this class-and
it seems likely to have come to stay-to
take sedulous care of the health and to
develop the muscle.
The thOroughgoing, intelligent society
woman of today has found out that
there can be no permanent beauty with
out health. and also that intellect and
activity are absolutely necessary if she
would make herself a light in the "best
circles"
Consequently our fashionable danes
are attending TO the body and the mind
as never before. Their lives are as I'M
like as possible TO those of their dead
and-alive prototypes of twenty years
ago.
In the first place, if a woman would
preserve her youthful strength and
beauty she must eat regularly and plen-
tifully, but not too heartily, of nutri-
tious food. Our fashionable women are
most substantially fed. Their food is
not always Of the most digestible char
acter but at least the pie and the dough-
nuts, which have slain or stultifed their
thousands, are excluded from their bill
of fare, and the multtudinous cake of
the country districts is also falling into
desuetude among the best people in our
cities
In the second place, exercise is the
order Of the cay among grandeS DANES.
They not only ride, drive and practice
with dumbbells and fencing gloves, but
they are walking in the open air more
than ever before. They act upon Emer-
sons saying. when you have worn out
your shoes the strength of the sole
leather has gone into the fiber of your
body"
In the third place, no one can keep her
youthful looks who does not sleep at
least eight hours on an average out Of
every twenty-four. It is true that the
women Of society are often fitting at
midnight from one ballroom 10 another.
But, on the other hand. they breakfast
at noon after such designations, and
often deny themselves a matinee or an
afternoon reception in order to take
needed siesta.
No one knows better than your astute
society woman that the bewitching lights
in her eyes and the dimple5 around her
mouth, to say nothing of her complexion
and Of her quickness at repartee, will be
hopelessly destroyed unless she takes
abundant sleep. and that as regularly as
she can possibly get it.
Her baths, too. are made a scientific
study with the society woman. while
they are too often neglected or improp-
erly taken by her less intelligent sister.
In the point of dress only is the society
woman behindhand. she not only wears
low uecked party dresses in winter, but
her clothes are usually very heavy and
so tight that she looks IS though she had
been poured into them; but the college
bred women who are thronging into our
''best circles are going 70 revolurionize
this matter. The false standard cannot