The Prince George's enquirer and southern Maryland advertiser. (Upper Marlborough, Md.) 1882-1925, 1895-06-21
Shirt a4i5rrIlanlJ.
WHEN ARE WE OLD.
By THE AUTHOR OF chow To BE HAPPY
THOUGH MARRIED..

\ man is As as old as he feels, and Il wo
man As old as she looks. The number OF
years is of less Importance There are Ole
men, like the late Oliver Wendell Homes
in whom youth-the youthful outlook-is
perennial \ friend asked Lord Palmer
ston when he considereda a man to be in the
prime of life. His lordship Immediately
replied, "Seventy- -nine.-But,' he added
with a playful smile, las | have just en-
tered my eightieth year, perhaps | am my
self a little past it,
Leigh Hunt quotes the following, which
he calls "a delicious memorandum from
Mrs. Inchbald's Diary:-I dined, drank
tea, and supped with Mrs. Whitfield At
dark, she and and her son William walk
ed out and raped at the doors in New
street, and ran away" The narrator of
this feat of Il woman who was then mid
dle-aged and most popular authoress,
but such people never grow Old
Some of us know middle aged men who
think it Il hardship not to be allowed to
play marbles, and even leap-frog. If they
dared, they would still take part in boyish
'larks." The death of Mathew Arnold,
the apostle of sweetness and light" was
caused in his sixty-tifth year by leaping
over Il fence in a tit of Juvenile high spirits.
Swedenborg ina gines that in heaven the
angels advance continually to the prime of
youth, so that those who have been there
longest are the youngest. Some of us have
friends who seem to fulfil this idea. They
preserve the freshness, guilelessness, hope
fulness, and elasticity of youth. They have
put away the weakness. imperfection, and
immaturity of childhood; they retain its
open mind and hcart-''In wit, man: sim
plicity. Il child
Many Young men are more blase than
their fathers: and there are girls who are
more worldly wise and world worn than
erable missionary, DR.. Marsh, Il Young man
once said: what is the use of being Young,
when one sees a man Of eighty in better
spirits than the iolliest among u.s." When
others was congratulated, at the age of
eighty seven, on her remarkable vigor, she
said: ''They never so often told me | was
young as since | have grown old" This
reminds us of the lady of ninety who said
to Fontenclle, then cighty-tive: Death
appears to have forgotten us"-'Hushr'
whispered the witty old man hastily, put
ting his finger on his lips.
The writer knows Il lady who is so well
preservcd' that She looks almost as young
and is as much admired as her handsome
daughter, who is engaged to be married.
How does she do it, is the question of
friends who wonder and envy as they see
her from time to time looking younger
than ever To some extent, no doubt,
she does not do it at all 1t is done for her
by the splendid constitution which she
has inherited from Il long lived race Then
she had the advantage of being brought
up simply and in the country. The roses
of her youth were not blighted by late
hours, heated bathrooms, and indigestiblc
suppers She has had few SORROWS of her
own; hut She never denies sympathy and
help to the sorrows of others. And
this last fact is perhaps the chief reason
why She wears SO we'll, for nothing 50 tends
to keep the heart, and therefore the out
ward appearance, young as the nurture of
kindly feelings and the practice of doing
good
The Lord hath kept me alive" said
Caleb, Il young man of eighty-tiye years
shall faint and be weary, and the young
men shall utterly fail; but they that wait