The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1898-01-13
THE AGE OF SENTINEL.
How Late In Life Can a Woman
Love Without Being Ridiculous.


'.Then, you know the worth of a lass.
Then you know boy is an ass.
When you have come to forty year
In THE Princess and the Butterfly
Pinero has put the query How late
in life can a woman love without being
pitiful or ridiculous?"
Pinero IS the most uD-to-date dram
atist of the day. He is as deeply i'm
bued with the spirit of his times as IS
Mrs. Humphrey Ward. But he does
not concern himeslf with religious or
l,lIilanthropic movements Like Dumas
fils he is Accordingly interested in the
people of that polished and elaborate
world which we call fashionable" So
Ciety, without considering it good So
ciety Dumas turned his attention to
the glittering and fast, but always ele-
CANT, life that grew out of the ruins OF
the second empire.
Pinero has not splendid models of this
sort to draw from. He simply depicts
latter-day English society, rather as
he wants to see it than as he actually
does see it. But if he is not willing to
penetrate to the core of it, he is alertly
alive to all the details, all the fads and
foibles uoOn its surface. He has an
unerring instinct for all that is part of
the life Of the moment. He is one OF
those dramatistS who feel in the air
what IS coming, and hence set fash
ions.
With his intense sensitiveness to all
that indicates end-Of- the-century de-
veloDment, Pinero has chosen for the
theme of his last play middle-aged love-
People have been writing stories about
love at 20 FOR some time. In his last
book, ''Wier of Hermiston,' Stevenson
was wrestling with a case of it, and in
the Vailima letters he spoke painfully
,NF% 10 Of frpo no q
problem. But hitherto the stage has
let it alone. An adventures may be 30
years Cd and yet not do violence to
the dramatic canOns, but no decent,
respecting heroine in a modern
drama dare be over 20
Read the novels of from 20 to 40 years
ago. and you will find romance asso-
ciated only with early youth. Heroines
are Is; heroes %. After these ages love
became matter of ridicule, and its vic
tins were relegated to the position of
those who furnished comic relief. F"
Public opinion was so strong on this
point that great authors were forced to
bow to popular prejudice, and pro-
claim their herOines girls Of Is, al
though they behaved like self-pOssess-
ed s-insters Of 30
When Balzac broke loose and wrote
of tie fascinating woman of 30 years,
the novel-reading public exclaimed at
such an elderly siren. Love meant
youth. That there could be a sort of
Indian summer Of sentiment was a
thing the world refused TO recognize.
In the present day everything-ro-
nance included-has undergone a reVo-
luton. Women marry later in life
than ever before. The age when a
grand passion may be inspired has
pushed on past 80 toward 10. People
are beginning to remember that the
great charmers of history were near the
meridian of life before they came into
the public eye-that Cleopatra was 81
when she conquered Antony, and Anne
Boleyn "a at the time of her marriage
with Henry; that Diane de Poictiers
was approaching 40 When she captivat-
ed her king, and that the charms of
Ninon de PEnclos were perennial. At
the period of her greatest ascendency
over Louis XIV, Nine. de Maintenon
was so As for Nine. Reeamier, she
was Irresistible at 20.
What Thackeray termed the age Of
reason when, for a man, dipping his
nose in the Gascon wine was formerly
supposed to have supplanted all the
other pleasures of existence, has now
become the age of sentiment. And the
great bellies of the gay world are now
rarely young girls. Like the Princess
Pannonia, they are advancing in re-
Splendent and opulent majesty toward
their 10th birthday
Yet who would dare to suggest to
these regal creatures who have con-
quered time-and by 20 years expert
ence of the world have learned how to
win and keep hearts-that they are too
old for love?
The reason for the successful invasion
of youth into middle age is the growth
of luxury, the knowledge of hygiene
and the proficiency of the beauty doc
tor We have only just learned in
this country how TO live luxuriously
and healthfully. Freedom from care,
ease of existence, harmony of environ
ment, preserve beauty. as no face
creams or gymnastics have ever done
Then come the aids of -~ise and