Juniata sentinel and Republican. [volume] (Mifflintown, Juniata County, Pa.) 1873-1955, 1893-02-01
MIDDLE AGE.

die age is fashionable. w NDuteVer tho ID =
cts may say of the golden spring time 81
Yonth, we of a practical, busy decade
hasten to cast off our salad days as
soon as possible. But if we are no
longer proud of being young, no one
can accuse us of the crime of wishing to
grow old. Up to four score years and
ten, and even lol ger, in every class,
every profession, every sphere-royal,
political, social, artistic or ornamental,
we ali profess to belong to the n,ezzO
camin period, rather than to that of
venerable old age. There is no noIbt
that people develop less quickly, but
decay less rapidly.
Between youth, with its glamour, its
hopes, its illusions. it's self-deceptIons,
and old age (if, IN this whirl of hurry
and high pressure, ever reached, re-
joicing in the equal delight of rest
stretches, ever lengthenIng, the long,
dusty track of toilIng, struggling, dis
lllusioned, faithless, hopeless, middle
age, bearing the burden and heat Of
the day. Yet it has its compensations
If shOrn of the hopes and illusions #
youth, it takes pleasure in the great
otic-work-and the delight of toll
is unknown to, and Rbhorred by,
youth. Middle-sge has ceased to be
disappointed, because 1t has ceased to
expect. 1t no longer covets for oidden
fruits, for it has tasted the dead-ses
spples. 1t distinguishes between the
shadow and the substance, and calls
things by their right nam S. 1t boldly
looks on both sides of question,
whereas youth ignorantly, and old
age, wilfully, ignores the rererS dc Ia
mcd0iUe. 1t is less selfish than mex
perienced youth, or self absorbed age
Ii has learnt the value of quarter in the
fierce strife of life, and is therefore
more ready to give it. Standing, as il
were, on the summit of the hill of Life,
it looks down on one side into the green
valley of youth, with a memory still
vivid enough to be sympathetic; on the
other, it sees, near enough to be very
real, the shady forest of Old age. With
one hand it clasps the children, fresh
to the wonder world around them.
With the other it supports the parents,
over whose eyes the evening mists are
fast stealing.
Not that middle age has much time
to linger. The noise of the battle Of
life surges round, drowning all mem
ories that whisper from the past. The
STRAIN of the present requires cool
head, a clear eye. Behind rise gaunt
spectres of the mistakes and the follies
of the past. dogging the footsteps OF
middle-age. Closed for ever are the
chapters of the ght-have-beens,
which accumulate, OIL SO fast. Men
tally and physically middle-age is al
ready aware of the slacken.d I'D string OF
the little rift in the lute.
Middle-age deals less kindly with
men than with women. True that
badness is fashionable even in the
most exalted stations, and that where
their ancestors concealed their pE. eno-
logical developments under masses OF
curls and powder. the present genera
tions exhibit them with a gratuitous
lavIshness which ought to reflect credit
upon the intellectual calibre of an
advancing civilization. 1t may, per-
haps, point to a period when hair shall
have gone the way of the caudal ap-
pendsge and the missing link. and the
hairless human be the latest develop
ment of his race.
Socially, too, the unhappy married
middle-aged male is at disadvantage
to the other sex. When bis son comes
''out," he promptly becomes young
Brown, and his parent is relegated to
the distinction of "old Brown" A
grown-up daughter infiicts no such
stigma on her mother.
Social opinion is less kind to wome.
with respect to the age at which the
marriage market is still open to them.
As the canonical hours for the solemni-
zstion of the holy estate have been
heightened of late years, SO 6as the
period expanded during which men are
still fair game in the matrimonial
chase. But woman runs swifter down
the hill of life than a man. Her youth
comes the desert OF certain. or rather
uncertain age. But never till the pres
ent time had woman such q golden op-
portunity for revealing, as Voltaire
remarks, in the decline of her beauty,
the charm of her intellect Never was
the sphere of the middle-aged woman
wider. We can abolish the generic
Term of ''old maid and substitute
that of the woman with rights"
with a mission" with work" We
do not waste them in converts; we use
them in philanthropy, education, poll
tics, art. and even, in a left handed
way, the Church. Whereunto modern
dress assists. We have abolished the
ringlets, and white muslin, and blue
ribbons sacred to maidenhood, as we'll
as the caps OF middle age. Bonnets
will probably share the same fate. for
hats are simultaneously worn by three
generations. Mothers and daughters
dress alike, aiming, not at an appear
ance of perennial youth, but OF pre-
serving that of an eternal middle
age.
PERSONAL.