The Afro-American., 1896-02-22
As1r1s TOLD IN OUR FACES.

than at TWENTY-FIVE. The one az
twenty-five might marry me, but the
one a fifty wonld show that | was
worth marrying. With homely
face at twenty-five the fair onesmlght
vote me into single blessedness, but
the fine face at fifty would show them
what mistake they had made. MY
face at twenty-five is the one SOD
has given me; my face at fifty IS the
one have furnished myself. Inc
old woman's face is a history; tue
Young wOman's face is a prophecy
a kind of conditional prophecy. Ihe
old woman's fe ce is fact about her
self; the young woman's face is
theory-a dream in feature, one ot
natures vague guesses of what she
can do with herself.
love old faces; they are always
true. The old woman's face is her
autobiography; it is her life IN NINA
ture. A face is the scenery OF the
soul, the camera of our thoughts' al
though we have not really seen
face until our hearts have followed
the whole repertoire ot It's expires
sions, yet each Woman's haolCu3 al race
as fair general expression OF hef-
self, is as if a composite had peeh
| taken and the soul had had Lnoue-
| and sittings, each negative d1tterlng
in its way. but all comolhed result
| inc in this one. Why should Wo-
man be ashamed of her wrinkles! IL
is being ashamed of not what she
seems, but what she is.
Wrinkles in a WOman's face are a
kind of photography, natures hand
writing, the shorthand offeatures, IN
which the main ideas of woman $
life are set down without her know
ing il. and in spite of herself, ana IN
the very midst of her denlals III ls q
language without a grammar, ana
only the vaguest sort OF a lexicon,
but every woman can read 1t. IL Is
German 10 the German, and 1Ldlah
to the indian; the universal Language
of the globe, the instructive Nolapuh
of mankind! These faces of ours. OF
rather these histories of ours, bound
into our being, and printed on our
very presence for public circulation
There is q story in every face Inc
snirit keeps a diary IN our races
kind of journal for handy reierenc'
among the daughters OF women pu
as she writes on the same page eN0I
dav she does some eraSlng, ana sIl'
has so much to put in so little INA
sha does that though all the details
80. put IUwn; ana, TnaSmuCn as one pom
will often exactly contradict another
they are paired eff like members o
Congress. and the QOte of either can
cells the other; and so this microlsn
of eyes and nose and mouth anC
wrinkled meanings, that the old Wo
man calls her face, is the sum ootal Ol
what she has been thinking all these
years.
What is sadder in all the world than
the old age that has lived for itself
aud the face With love left out of It'll
Such face is full of deaths to me. OF
thoughts and impulses that were
BON and lived little and then were
stitfed, face full of spirits graves, OF
noble posi- bilities, that died i'll her
infancy, aud have all been sacrificed,
Ike the babes of Indian mothers TO
! the Juggernaut Of selfishness. Hhad
rather die today myself than to live
| TO be an old woman accusing myself
with such face as this! A face like
a gate 10 q cemetry saying, Gail with
in here are dead: this woman mas
lived for hesrelt."
What on the other hand is more
glorious than grand old woman?
It's kind OF Gods approval, heaV-
EMS b ne LECTION of IL true life, tn q
UNCONSCIOUS euiogy of the year! Let
the faces Of the Ola women prophecy
IN nopes and fears to Us younger ones
God never ri bs anything out!
| care not for my face at twenty
five. 1t is as ii faces were waited
about among the souls OF wUmer Ike
seeds in the unreasouing winds.
Seeds of thistle and seeds of flowers
see king for their homes and because,
percnance. the thistLe-down cling &c
me. and the flowers sped on to alighC
in the lives of others, L grieve not. 1t
Is only wind that knows no better
Ihe law guess work of its wanderiugs
and there iU ends; but when l am
old. and the face that has happened
TO me has been my own for seventy
wears. welded by thousand thoughts
and the loves and hates OF every
heartbeat, to what | ain, then may
God grant that iC be face that
draws the love of hearts, face with
poems, lrag dies, purltIes ana victor
les dramatized within il! And, as
for beauty, only ask that the beauty
(Iod NAV grant within may steal
softly DER the plainness without, now
and then. as though the spirit, wan
dering ia it's sleep like a dream of
light. had lost its way in the features,
and woke up to find itself on the out
side of the plain old face that ever
hemmed it in! Before the years have
all brought III their gifts aud the last
one comes to offer eternity in the
grew haired waiting time, God grant
me the beauty then that takes pos
sessloa OF a homely face Ia the name
of it's immortal soal, and stamps it
with the majesty Of God's fhoaghts!
The beauty Of young il d spring son
net. and thesong Of il fllls the world
with promise, but the beauty Of old
age is a life epic, and the promise
thereof belong tU another world
If the young lady who sent the con