Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1892-08-06
WOMEN PAST FORTY.
They Allow Themselves to Grow Old and
the World Neglects Them.

They Allow Themselves to Grow Old and
the World Neglects Them.
From the Chicago Herald.
why should woman at the age Of forty be,
in any sense Of the word. passe?'' asked Mrs.
Terhune the other day at the Monona Lake as
sembly. And then she answered the question
in paper that was full of the simplest vet the
saddest and most pathetic sentences that one is
likely to hear for many day.
Mrs. Terhune pointed out that after the age
OF forty the mental forces OF woman are at their
best, and yet the sunset Of her life is darkened.
Take the average case. A woman Of twenty mar
ries. She is handsome. intelligent and edu-
Gated. She has read. she has bathed q little in
the sea Of thought and looked with wonderment
upon its billows She has even dreamed Of yoy-
ages out there where stately ships Of splendid
minds are grasping all the winds that blow and
are pushing for the port of progress. And then
she turns to her duties as wife. At first she
follows her reading and tries to keep up with
the times, bat it keeps her buster now than it
did. Then the children come and she is so
harried. Her work is so amending and so ex-
acting. She finishes one task only to find II has
brought her to the threshold Of hundred new
ones. She thinks sometimes Of the culture she
IL losing, but she has no time. Here are duties
that will not be waved aside. She is a good
mother and her children shall not be neglected
She loses her touch with the women whose
cares are lighter. She forgets much that she
once knew well. She bends every energy that
the children may have advantages She would
feel that she had done selfish an unpardona-
bic thing if she sat down to read or to study
when there were tasks demanded of her by her
husband or her children.
Presently she sees that the bows and girls
have discovered that mother does not know
How quickly children come to that? Thew
compare her with some one and she suffers.
without meaning it or knowing it she loses
interest in the things that interest them. She
never would have thought she could do that
10 avoid 1t Is the very thing for which she
sacrificed herself. She has made duty her slave
so long that duty is her MASTER She cannot
escape from the treadmill she has builded She
sees her weary way till the dav is done, and
even in sleep she dreams of toiling. All her
associates drift further and further from her
Her circle narrows till she stands in the center
alone. There is not a throb from her brain
that is answered by thought from the world,
and she knows it.
Has she done best. Would it have been sell
fishness for her TO neglect the children little
in unconscious infancy to keep pace with them
better in acute maturity? Does she not quicker
lose hold of them. lose guidance of them when
they can outrun her-outthink her? And when
they have gone and left her alone and the
echoes are loud where laughter used TO live,
what has she? Neglected, forgotten. unre-
Quilted, unthanked, in many things ignorant,
in many things dull. the measure of suffering
that must be hers will simply be the measure of
possibility that was hers the day she wed.