The Birmingham age-herald., 1915-06-27
Middle-Aged Romance
By CONSTANCE TRAFFoRD

Whether not the world upheaval has anything to do with it, don't pretend to know. Perhaps it is due to causes less ob- yious. Perhaps we are all too prone at present to attribute every little social symptom we chance to observe to the Wal. But whatever may be the cause. 1t seems beyond doubt that there is a re- vival of middle-aged romance.
 It is generally believed by aggressively one lurig before middle-age comes with crows feet" and attentuated headaches. To hint to one of these arrogant young persons that man or woman of say, 40 might still secretly keep the sacred flame of romance alive in their hearts would be to invite that magnificent scorn of which only arrogant youth is capable.
 "Still romantic,', You can almost hear tho insolent incredulty of the vibrant young voice. T don't believe it. Why they ought to be ashamed of themselves Perhaps they are rather ashamed of ashamed of themselves, though why they should be, heaven alone knows Certainly, during recent years. at all events, our pictures and oar plays and our fiction have dealt almost exclusively with youthful romance-with the ephemera1, rapturous romance that belongs by right to the precious period when the pulses are all a-tingle and high adventure Is in the
  wrights and noveists and the makers of DlAy have ignored it's existence, it by no means follows that the fire of romance has I died down to blackened ashes in every middle-aged heart.
 l Perhaps it is true of the majority of men that romance dies as middle-age dawns. Certainly 1t Is difficult to as- sociate anything so delicately elusive ! with the average man of 45 whom you | meet in the suburban trains. But even l if it be true of the middle aged male, am convinced that it is most assuredly not true of the middle-aged woman. And 1 1t is in their neglect of the romance of I the middle-aged woman that the business of life in art and literature has gone
 astray
 l But there are signs that they are stumb- 1 ling back to the right path There have l been produced in London recently for ex- ample two plays, the essential motive of which was based upon the belief that the | fires of romnace still burn steadily after | gossamer youth has gone. And one, at l least of the twain has scored a big sue | cess because of the very existence of
 the mddle-aged romance which selfish
 youth sneers at.
 The heroine of "A Busy Day" recently at the Apollo theatre. was one of the I most charming herones the London stage has given us for quite long while. Yet
 she was neither young nor fair. She was
 n woman of midde-age, widow who
 did not even desire to capture second husband.
 l Of course, middle-aged romance is
 much more difficult subject to handle l in print or behind the footlights than the 1 exuberant romance which Is the heritage of youth. It lies deeper; it is less obvious | it is more reticent But 1t Is there, and | 1t would surely be well worth the while
 of those whose business it Is to carry us
 away from the prosaic sordidness of the daily grind, to dig more diligently in a | mine that has been little explored. l Perhaps, after all. the world war has to do with it. Even the middle-aged, stodgy and uninteresting as they are to the next generation cannot escape the influence
 of the storm of emotionalism that has ept from shore to shore of our island home. Perhaps the war has brought the romanticism of the middle-aged out of it's hiding-it may even be. when peace comes the middle-aged will not need to be
 ashamed if they still cherish romance
 And if that should be so, the world will be
 none the worse for it.