OCR Text |
Show ARE WE OLD AT FORTY? There is no fact more striking than the way modern life is pushing back the period of oM age, Sniys a writer In the September Strand Magazine. Less than a century ago a man wos old al forty. You have only to pick up Jane Austen's noxcls lo find gentlemen of thirty-five described as middle-aged. At sixty they were gabbling iu their d.itage.'And there Is M. Pickwick that dear, delightful, benevolent old gentlemen of forty-five! Fifty years ago. when a man reached reach-ed the age of forty live he grew a ln-ard under his chin, bought himself a pair of drab gaiters and a white neckcloth, and spoke with anlxous concern of the rising ceneratlon, whose manners were so different frm those he had known as a "young man." Nowadavs the popular notion of Irresponsible, irrcpress.ble youth Is illustrated bv Colonel ttno.sevelt, who Is fifty-two. In our generation thirty-two s outwardly indistinguishable indistinguish-able from fifty-two, save in that the former has a slightly more vouthful tint in its cheek and its waistcoat. As for tho fair sex, the genue old lady Is all but extinct. The pretty, vivacious matron you adimrc at a five or seventy summers. As Queen Alexandra nt long since said to Mine. Adellna Paul: "We two are two of the youngest women In England." The Illutsratlous Royal example has been so sedulo.slv followed that the ladies As for the fair sex, the genius old wave in the height of Fashion maybe may-be said to laugh in thevery face . f Father Time |