Page:Free Opinions, Freely Expressed on Certain Phases of Modern Social Life and Conduct.djvu/231

 her years with so much ease and scarcely diminished beauty. But there are hosts of other women beside the Queen whom it would seem that "age cannot wither,"—Sarah Bernhardt, for example, whose brilliant vitality is the envy of all her feminine compeers; while many leading "beauties" who never scored a success in their teens, are now trampling triumphantly over men's hearts in their forties. Nevertheless the boorish sections of the Press and of society take a special delight, (Mr. Lecky calls it "pure malevolence,") in making the advance of age a subject for coarse jesting, whereas if rightly viewed, the decline of the body is merely the natural withering of that chrysalis which contains the ever young and immortal Soul. Forced asunder by the strength of unfolding wings, the chrysalis must break; and its breaking should not cause regret, but joy. Of course if faith in God is a mere dead letter, and poor humanity is taught to consider this brief life as our sole beginning and end, I can quite imagine that the advance of years may be looked upon with dislike and fear,—though scarcely with ridicule. But for the happy beings who are conscious that while the body grows weaker, the Soul grows stronger,—who feel that behind this mere passing "reflection" of Life, the real Life awaits them, age has no drawbacks and no forebodings of evil. The prevailing dread of it, and the universal fighting against it, betoken an insecure and wholly materialistic mental attitude.

Of the feminine indulgence in complexion cures, combined with the deplorable lack of common sense, which shows itself in the constant consultation of palmists and clairvoyants, while home and