The Montgomery advertiser., 1909-09-23
ELDERLY ONES GONE
BANIsHED FROM WORLD OF PRES
EMIT DAY FEMALE.


London Express.
1t is a delightful and happy truth
which no one with a clear and retro
spective mind can contradict. that we
have. In this world of women. Danish
ed that dreadful era between youth
and antiquity. We have done away
| with middle age.
There is no such drab and ugly
thing nowadays. We are young un-
| less we be indisputably hoary, and
even then 1t is a long and rose-strewn
path which leads up to this last period
of ones existence.
| If my statement be said to be ex-
aggerated, let the doubter seek any
circle of modern cultured womanhood
and l contend that he will look in vain
| for the elderly woman as we used to
know her.
| Come with me to some smart social
function. and watch for half an hour
| the stream of femintnity come and go.
The tall. slight woman with the skin
of milk and roses which 1t is plain to
see does not owe its beauty to make
up, but to nature, Is the mother. not
the sister, of the 20-year-old girl be-
side her. while the handsome young
matron Just coming In attired In deli
cate muslin ana picture hat is a
grandmother! And so on throughout
i
| figures, unwrinkled faces in women
who have long ago passed what used
| to be considered the borderland OF
youth; nor is there apparently the
slightest attempt at seeking to stay
the march of time In these fair and
gracious specimens of womanhood.
Girls there are. but neither are they
in the slightest degree elderly: nor do
believe whatever strange evolutions
the coming ages may bring that this
world of women will ever revert to
the sad and depressing era or middle
age again.
Take the matter OF years and con-
| trast the modern women of 80 or 40
with a woman OF the same age in our
| nine cases out OF ten, be to all out
ward appearances the daughter OF the
latter.
Do we not all remember the hero
ines OF the favorite novels OF the ear
| lier Victorian era--the Emilys and
Carolines who were always wooed and
welded between Is and 20? To have
portrayed a heroine unmarried at this
age would have awakened adverse
criticism from a romantic public
| Marriage and motherhood meant to
the woman of those days the knell OF
| youth, and to consider ones figure,
the smartness of ones shoes or the
oucoming wrinkle was the thought,
when once married. an absurdity, and,
what was worse, almost an improprie-
ty by their contemporaries. The ma
tron of the past accepted, nay. even
looked for. middle age as the proper
| sequel to wifehood and motherhood,
while the modern woman rejects with
enlightened scorn the elderly era, and.
feeling young. and is young full de-
cade longer than was her mid-Victo
rIan sister. And what is the cause of
this happy revolution? To a great ex-
tent the conquest OF mind over mat
ter.
The woman of today. Leading a
broader, fuller life than was consid
cred possible thirty years ago. has
realized that existence IL too short TO
accept middle age and all its sacri-
fees before life is half over Then
In hundreds of cases she Is today a
breadwinner. a worker In life's arena
and knows that. although she cannot
achieve real success lacking maturity
Of mind, her added experience also