THE DANGEROUS AGE.

Press, Volume LVIII, Issue 17631, 7 December 1922, Page 9

THE DANGEROUS AGE.

We have reached the Dangerous Age, when that insistent question crops up, "Is my innings nearly over?" Immediately we cease to sec life as it is, Are see it as it was and as we would like it to be again.

To talc© full advantage of the time that is left becomes an overmastering obsession. Age tries to fox-trot in the same class with Youth. Youth comments scathingly, "He- is old enough to know better." Youth has s?ant sympathy for, and no understanding of, Age. Men who have enjoyed a good innings are keen to go on scoring. Thomas Parr, after burying more than one wife, married again when ho was on© hundred and twenty! Women, on the other hand, who have lived fully accept tho disabilities of ago with more grace and philosophy. But those of them w,ho have suppressed for long years emotions and sensibilities denied natural expression- are in dire peril. These snatch recklessly at any chance of happiness. And who can blaine them?' Quito apart from Cupid's pitfalls and quagmires, the Dangerous Ago maybring men and women to utter grief in moro humdrum ways. Uwket-ehops, bookmakers, company promoters find fish for their net in all and sundry to whom excitement is a more deadly lure than the promised profits. A dull life is passing without any compensating thrills.

Let us have one good time! Can anything save the situation when it presents itself overwhelmingly? Nothing—except a sense of humour. Your true humorist ' sees a joke against himself; he has a "nose" for the ridiculous in all its protean forms. And we are supremely ridiculous, a. source of inextinguishable laughter to gods «nd men, when we play parts in tho human comedy beyond our failing powers. I have an unhappy recollection of the famous Sim3 Reevea, singing "Com© Into tne Garden, Maud," when he was past seventy! All ages tue dangerous from tluo cradle' to the grave. We steer our course past reefs and through rapids. It is exasperating to reflect that contrary winds and treacherous waters await us just outside the harbourage of our declining years. But it is so.

May we weather the autumnal gales! —H. A. Vacbell, in London "Daiiv Mail."