The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1898-08-21


the flood leads on 20 fortune The asser-
ton. by the by, is open TO doubt what
does come to every one is an hour, fraught
with warning, which, if unheeded, leads
on" to folly. This fatefui date comedies
for most Of us with the discovery that we
are turning gray; that the crows. feet
on our temples are becoming stern reaIl-
ties. Then the unpleasant question pre-
sents itself: Are we TO slip meekiy into
middle age. or are arms 60 be taken up
against our insidious enemy, and the rest
of life becomes a losing battle fought inch
b. inch?
In other days, says the New York Com
merciaI Advertiser, logically enough, it was
the men who struggled the hardest against
their fate. as. up TO this century, the male
had always been the ornamental member
of a family Caesar, we read, coveted a
laurel crown principally because it would
help to conceal his coming badness, and
the wigs of the Grand Monarque are his
torical 1t is characteristic of the time
that the Iatters attempts at rejuvenation
should have been taken as mater OF
course, while a few years later poor Ma
dame de Pompadour's articles TO retain her
fleeing youth were laughed at and de-
cried
To-day the situation is reversed. The
battle given up by the men-who now ae-
cept their fate with equanimity-is being
waged by our better halves, with vigor
heretofore unknown. So general has this
mania become that if asked what one
weakness thought the most characters
tic of modern women, what popularity
marked them as different from their sisters
In other centuries, l should unhesitatingly
answer. "The desire to look younger than
their years"
That people should long to be handsomer
or taller, or better proportioned than
cruel Providence has made them, is natu-
raj enough, but that so much time and
trouble should be spent simply In trying
TO look young" does seem unreasonable,
especially when it is evident to everybody
that the majority of such efforts must be
failures. The men or women who do not
look their age are rare. In each generation
there are exceptions, people, who, from
one cause or another-generally phenom-
email consutution-succeed in giving the IL
itself has flown.
A curious fatality that has the air of
Nemesis pursues those who succeed In pro-
ducing false appearance. When pointing
them out to strangers, their admirers On
order to make the contrast more effective)
add decade or two TO their real age. only
last month / was sitting at dinner oppo-
site a famous French beauty, who at fifty
still succeeds in looking no more than thir-
ty. During the meal both my neighbors
directed attention TO her appearance, and
in each case said: Isn't she a wonder!
You know she's over sixty" So all that
poor lady gained by looking youthful was
ten years added to her agel
The desire TO remain attractive as long
as possible is not only a reasonable but
commendable ambition. Unfortunately the
stupid means most of our matrOns take to
accomplish this end produces exactly the
opposite result. one sign of deficient taste
in our day is this failure 10 perceive that
every age has a charm of its own that can
be enhanced by appropriate surroundings,
but which is lost when forced INTO an in
congruous setting. 1t saddens a lover of
the beautiful to see the matrons going so
far astray In their desire to please, as TO
pose for young women when they no long
er can look the part
Holmes felt this, and when writing of all
aged relative asked plaintively
why viii she train that wintry curl in
such a sDring-like way?"
That this folly is in the air. to-day, few
win dispute. 1t seems to be perpetrated
unconsciously by the greater number with
no particular object in view simply be-
cause other people do it," An unanswera-
bic argument when used by one of the
fair SEX
Few matrons stop to think for them
selves, or they would realize that by ap-
pearing in the same attire as their daugh-
ters they challenge a comparison that can
but be to their disadvantage, and which
il should be their object to avoid. Is there
any disilusion more painful than, in APP
preaching what appeared from distance
to be young girl, 10 find ones self face 10
face with sixty years of wrinkles? That is
modern version of the saying, AN old
head on young shoulders, >" with a ven
geance. If the mistaken matrons could di-
vine the effect that tired eyes smiling from
under false hair, aged throats clasped with
collars of pearls and rheumatic old ribs
Draced into a semblance of eirlish grace
produce on the men for whose benefit such
adornments have been arranged, reform
would quickly follow. There is always
something uncanny in such an Illusion The
more successful it is, the more weird the
effect. No one wants to see Poonius acted
in the finery of Mercutio. What sense of
fitness demands is on the contrary, a
make up" in keeping with the role which
does not mean that woman is TO become
trump, but only that she Is to make
herself attractive IN another way.
During the Ancien Regime in France
when matter of taste were considered all
important, when an entire court would con-
suit on the shade of a brocade and hail a
new couture as an event, the great ladies
who had left their youth behind them new
er committed the blunder of aping the mai
dens of The day. They Were far TOO clever
for that, and appreciated The advantages
60 be gained from sombre stuffs and fiat
tering laces. Lei those who doubt study
Matters exquisite portrait of Maria Lac
zinska. Nothing in The pose or toilet sug-
gests a desire on the painters part TO re-
5uvenate his sitter. If anything. the
Queens age is emphasized as something
honorable. The gray hair is simply ar
ranged and partly yelled with black lace.
that sets off her delicate, faded face to per-
tection, but without liattery or fraud
We find the same view taken of age by