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Show I Dorothy Dix Talksl I I KEEPING YOUNG. II ! I By DOROTHY DIX, The World's Highest Paid Woman ."Writer 1 1 H j Of all the idiotic and mischievous H j i cults that were ever foisted upon a H credulous world the worst is the Per- H (petual Youth cult H. I We've made the preservation o our H callow and crude salad days an occu- H jpation, a faith, a religion. Everywhere you go you are adjured to keep young. H The street cars shriek "at you, from H i advertisements, to preserve your youth H in So and So's massage cream. Physi- Ijl leal culture instructors adviso you how EJ , n. Jto keep a boyish, or a girlish figure by means of tJheir particular system of ex-H ex-H ercise. Books, papers and magazines devote columns to urging you to keep voung by continual study. The propa-H propa-H 'gandists of new and optimistic creeds . 'assuro you that you can keep young by thinking young thoughts, and refusing 'to let your mind dwell on the passing H years. It's youth, youth, youth.! Everybody H is on a personally conducted Ponce de H Leon excursion to the sources of the H fountain of perpetual youth. You would H think from the popular attitude on the H subject that age was a crime, to grow M iclderly the ultimate misfortune and to Wk be old the crowning disgrace of life. H Particularly is this the case with H women. The poor dears have beea H made to feel that ago is a greater re-H re-H fraction on their character than any S other scandal could be; that no hus-H hus-H band's love could be expected to stand the strain of his wife having had fifty H birthdays and that when a woman can H no longer conceal the shame of hav- H ing gray hairs and crow's feet -that she H is done with the joy of life and had H i better be dead. H It is pathetic, but true, that women H ! believe so blindly in this superstition H that youth is their one best bet their H only bet that they actually make H themselves old and haggard beforo H 'their time trying to look younger than I 'they are. H Never was there a more mistaken H idea on the world than that youth is B - the time of supreme happiness. It is H J not. It is a time of sensitiveness, of Q morbidness, of acute "suffering. It is B i the season of temptuous emotionalism B when our very soul is torn to tatters B with griefs and disappointments that B wo would not give a second thought to B after we have got our second wind B and a truer perspective on life. B s As for a woman, youth, and par- B k ticularly the near youth period be- B tween 25 and 40, is a time of striving, B , strain and struggle a time of doubts B and tears, and despair when she is try- B ing to harden herself to meet the fate : that has been alloted to her instead of having the fate of which she had dreamed. No woman really ever has any peace of mind, or body, or ever tastes the full flavor of unalloyed bliss until sho is past 50 and doesn't care who knows it. Heal happiness only comes to her after sho accepts ago, and gives up the struggle of trying to make people peo-ple think she is fifteen years younger than sho is. Think of the relief a woman experiences exper-iences when she doesn't have to be massaged for wrinkles any moro because be-cause she has arrived at tho time of life when a woman is expected to have wrinkles, and when they are simply character marks, and beautiful, instead in-stead of being blemishes Think of the bliss of not having to maintain a waist line any moro by means of fasting, prayer and exercise, because j-ou are an old lady and it doesn't make a bit of .difference whether you have a forty-eight inch belt measure or an eighteen inch one! Think of the solid comfort of being able to wear shoes big enough for your feet, with flat heels, because you are elderly, and they are the appropriate things to wear! Think of tho delights of carefree existence in which you can trail along two or three years after the fashion, because you have passed Into the age class, and do not have to hot foot it after tho' latest thins in hats or gowns any more! Think, oh camouflaging sisters, of being able to smash your rougo pot and lose your powder rag, and wear a nice clean soap-andwater face once more! Think of being forever done with the scalping irons and the hair specialist, and having the privilege of doing your scanty locks up in a knot the size of a hickory nut, and skewering skewer-ing it to the back of your head with one pin! Think of being forever freed from the tortures of the Inquisition that we women go through trying to conceal our age, and knowing that despite our best efforts we are always under suspicion! sus-picion! When you think of the mere bodily comforts that ago brings to women you wonder that instead of setting set-ting back tho clock, we don't push it forward, and seize on the privileges and perquisites of age beforo we really have a right to them. And this without even casting a hungry hun-gry glance at the table, to whose joys we have been a stranger over since we ascertainted that our weight was steadily creeping up on us. The annals ii hi of the agonies of starvation that are tho price of a slight and -willowy figuro at 40, are only -written in the Book o Martyrs, and not tho least of the recompense of ago is plenty of mashed potatoes, gravy and chocolate cake. Above all, no -woman overy really knows thepeaco that passes all understanding under-standing until she reaches the time of life when men mean nothing in her axistence, and she doesn't care two pence whethoy thoy admire her or not Of course most -women never reach that age, even if they live to be as old as Methuselah, -which explains -why there are so few old "women and contented con-tented -women. Ifs only after a -woman realizes that she is too old for husband hunting, or husband keeping, that she has time to enjoy life, and enjoy men, and -when she can afford to -weed out her masculine mas-culine acquaintances, and get rid of tho bounders and the bores. Nobody knows what a woman has to endure in the years -while sho sits around looking pleasant, waiting for the right man to come along. It doesn't do for her to get the reputation reputa-tion of being hard to please because that would scare off every man in the community, so she has to smile on dotty grandpas, and beam on callow youths, and look fascinated -while conceited con-ceited egpists spend hours telling her how great and wonderful they are. Having to listen to bores is one of tho sad, sad sorrows of life that the elderly woman can eliminate, and that alone is wortli the price of growing old. And as for keeping a husband's love, the elderly woman doesn't worry about that, because she knows that the wife who only holds her husband by a corset cor-set string has got a mighty precarious hold on him, and one that Is liable to break. If he doesn't love her for something better than a make believe youth, he doesn't love her at all, and there's no use in her trying to paint herself up like a living picture. It isn't youth, It's age that is the happiest time of life for a woman. But you can't make any of them believe It. |
