Atlanta tri-weekly journal. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1920-19??, 1921-01-11
DOROTHY DIX TALKS
BY DOROTHY DIX
The Time Limit on Youth
Copyright, 1920, by the Wheeler Syndi-
cate, Inc.
CORRESPONDENT wants to know

~ what age woman SnOui1 give up Inc
fight to appear younger than she is, ?
and frankly surrender to age.
Are paints, and powder, and transforma-s
tions a virtue up to a certain point and the
unforgivable sin afterward?" she asks Z
This is difficult question to answer, be-
cause no woman on the sunny side OF nlnsts
ever admits to being anything but mere
girl and therefore, while she would agree !
that it was foolish for other old sheep to
camou1age 1ambhood, she would have no :
doubt but that she could do it and get away
with it, without rousing a suspicion in the
breast of the beho1der.
Admitting, however, that there are women
who, in the privacy of their boudoirs, look
into their mirrors and behold all of their if-
ty-odd years staring them in the face, what
shall they do? Shall they do any dye, or be
grizzledheaded? Shall they paint or leave
their cOuntenances weather-be.ten as time
had made them? ~
1t seems to me that the whole question of .
the ethics of cosmetics depends upon whether =
the results are artistic or not. If touch of y
rouge, discreetly applied, makes a sallow
cheek rosy; if little dash of peroxide puts q
a CLINT of gold into mouse-coloreG hair and
turns homely woman into one who is easy
the eyes instead of being scare-crow,
then it is highly moral and philanthrop1c
act for the said woman to have recourse to
such adventurous aids to beauty. =
But, on the other hand, cosmetics inn !.
jectionable. However, it behooves thu woman Z
to be very sure that the end will justify the I
means before she dips her hand into the
paint pot, and gets busy with the hair-dys
bottle.
And that is what the woman who tries to
keep the illusion Of youth, after youth has
fled, is too apt tc do.
Youth means so much to woman that no
one can blame her for hanging on to 1t with
both hands, as long as there is a shred Of It
IoQk L1,kk f1,O qr~ InAn tN
is that there does come time when it is
gone, and that she only emphasizes its loss
by pretending that she has it still.
No hair looks so old as dyed hair. No.
cheeks look withered as those upon which \
artificial roses are painted, no figure looks so =
aged as the old body dressed in the habili-ss
mepts of school girl. 81
Last summer I stayed at resort hotel In 3
which there was woman of perhaps sixty
She was very thin and small, and this gave
her the figure of young girl She wore the
shortest of sport skirts, and the jauntiest Of
sport hats, and her hair was dyed that WON
derful mahogany red that never grew on any
human head. Everybody noticed this woman,
and the universal exclamation that she called
forth was, "My heavens, did you ever see
such an old hag?"
Now really the woman wasn't a bag at
ALL She really wasn't Old If she had been
dressed approp. lately to her age, and had had
her honest gray hair, she would have i'm
pressed everyone as a pretty, middle-aged
woman. But when she tried to look like a
f1apper, she only succeeded in looking like
the witch Of Endor. u
Something like that happens to every
woman who tries to look like her own grand
daughter. She only makes herself ridicu- :
lous, for youth is one Of the things that can
not be initiated. once heard hair-dresser
trying to dissuade a woman from having her
gray hair dyed.
ooh yes" he said, "I can dye your hair
the color of a girls, but can't give you
girls young fac1 to wear under it, nor the
look of girls young eyes. Your eyes have
seen too much, and life has written its story
in the lines on your face"
And if women make a mistake in trying to
paint themselves up, and doll themselves up,
SO that they look younger than they are, they
are guilty of still more objectionable folly
in trying to act like debutantes long after
they are old enough to know better.
Nothing could be more disgusting than
withered old crone who insists on dancing,
while her aged bones creak like rusty hinges,
and who ogles men, and tries to firt, and
talks about herr beaux, and conquests, and
who gurgles, and Shippers and affects the airs
of an ingenue, while she is tottering on the
brink of the grave.
The trouble with women is that they do
not realize that there is one glory of the sun,
and another of the moon, and another of the
stars, and that there is one beauty of the
Spr1ngC1mo, ana q SplenuOr OF the
and fascination of the autumn, and that to
each season it's peculiar charm is given. But
you can't bring one delight over to the next
season!
No one will gainsay the loneliness OF q
young girl, or the splendor of a womans ma
turity but her mellow autumn time has it's
peculiar charm If she has intelligence enough
to keep it, and make the most of it, instead
Of pretending that it is May with her and
not October.
She cannot successfully simulate sixteen at
sixty, but many woman at sixty Is better
looking than she was at sixteen, for life fire.
quently chisels a rough-hewn face into lines
of beauty, and Often just the sheer goodness
in the face of an elderly woman, who has
lived a life that has overlooked with kindli-
ness and sympathy, makes 1t as beautiful az
an angels. -
More than that, every woman who has
lived to be sixty years old, and who Is not
an abject idiot, has seen so much, has ex-
perienced so much, has learned so much, that
she is more interesting than ally young per-
son can possible be-
To the woman who asks how long she
should keep up the struggle to appear young,
would say: You have the choice between
being an old-young woman, or young-old
one I think that the latter is the better
choice. For when woman gives up the
struggle to cease to be younger than he is.
it gives her the privilege of doing all the
things that she wishes to do and leaving I'M
done all those which she does not wish to 90.