The Indianapolis times. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1922-1965, 1928-02-23
Is Thirty the
LOUe Deadine?
MenCken Sees GaIIStones
and Early Love in
Close Connection.
BY II. l.. MENCKEN

NR. DOfCANI . ODSeINdGlOIl
- that no rational man ever
falls in love after thirty is surely
not new. I printed it in book
called I'm Defense of Women"
ten or twelve years ago. Nor was
it new when I printed it.
You will find it, if you search
hard enough, in Shakespeare,
who, have no doubt, borrowed
it from an Italian, who had cab
baged it from the Greeks.
BY reiterating it in various
forms, some of them voluptuous
and others indignant, George Ber-
nard Shaw has earned at least
$4,000, by my estimate, since the
year 1886. And it is still good for
an occasional outfit of lecturers
gauds for Durant, and case OF
Assnanshaueser Hinterkirch Aus
lese 1921 for me.
But, like all other truths, it is
not to be taken too literally.
have seen men of thirty-five mag
nificently in love, and full of. a
fine, fierce pride in the fact. But
these same men also wrote poetry,
and believed that a couple OF
quinine pills, taken before going
to bed, would cure a cold.
In other words, they were eX-
cessively romantic, which is to
say, balmy. Durant, J. suppose,
referred to more rational fellows,
as I did in my book, and the
Greeks long before either of us.
Such rational fellows no more
can fall in love, in the full ro-
mantle sense, than a dry Con-
gresham can resist drink. Their
very incapacity for it, indeed, is
one of the chief proofs of their
nationality.
For this romantic love, when all
is said and done, is simply nom
sense, and hence not worth much
mourning. It's cause, I am in
formed by agents in the medical
colleges, is an ebullition of the
hormones; it's effects are indis-
tinguishable from those of a
somewhat prolonged and inju-
dicious jag. The victim, looking
at black, sees white.
THE lady who has knocked him
Il off, seen through his glazed
NnnnTTlnE
Florence Nightingale, Marie An
toinette, Lola Montez, Edith
Cavell, Grace Darling and the
tenth and best wife Of Belshazzar,
king of Babylon.
His view of her, in the sight of
all other persons, is apt to seem
comical. And when he marries
her, he commonly finds that it is
painfully erroneous. Very few
early marriages are genuinely
happy.
They may last. but so do gall
stones last. I add politely that
what is pain for the gander is
probably agony for the goose.
But though the romantic love
described in the works of the
standard poets thus is mainly a
function of youth, and can not
survive into actual maturity, I
see no reason why man sliding
into the forties should not marry
satisfactorily, and make a good
husband.
His illusions may be gone, but if
the lady he claps his eye on really
is charming there may be a great
many very soothing realities. The
plain fact is that many females of
the human species are lovely, and
that their loneliness survives even
the harShest of spotlights. They
make pretty pictures, especially
when competently made up. They
have nimble wits and are anus
ing.
They know how to be agreeable.
They are tolerantly cynical, and
do not expect too much, either of
God or of man. I can easily
imagine even the most hard
boiled Of men falling for such a
wench.
In fact, 1 have seen them fall
and observed them happy after
ward.
THIS, to be sure, is not ro-
Il mantle love. 1t is not ideal
istic. 1t sees nothing that is not
actually there. But, as I say,
what is there may be very charm
ing. If it is, then it is apt to
last.
For charm is almost as durable
as gallstones. 1t is no more a
junction of mere youth than it is
Pigment of illusion. The gen.
a