MERCILESS YOUTH.

Dominion, Volume 1, Issue 65, 10 December 1907, Page 3

MERCILESS YOUTH.

Mrs. Evan Ncpean writes amusingly in the. "Queen" of youth's stern criticism of its ciders. There are several ways, she says, in which youth's criticism has—or ought to have —a tonic effect. I have come across a caso lately, in which a woman is severely blamed for loTJking old early. A good lady insists upon calling herself an old woman ("I'm the mother of a growing family" —how dreadful it would be to have a family which did not grow, but remained dwarfs!— "and I can't he bothored with trying to look young, and all that nonsense") The trouble is that she tries to look old, and the "gilded roof on\tho horror" is the fact that she succeeds! Youth, aged fourteen, wils scathing on the subject "yesterday. "Brown's mother is an awful old frump, , ' said Youth; "about a hundred—awful for Brown." "Brown's mother is exactly seven years younger than 1 am," said Youth's mother, immensely amused. Youth looked at his mother, oponed his mouth to say "Hot!" (which would have been complimentary, hut impolito), and remarked, "Well, all I nan say is, she ought to bo ashamed of herself." "She thinks I ought to be that, because I look soven y.ears younger than she does," said Youth's'mother. "That's all jolly fine," said Youth; "you look'your proper age" (here Youth's mother was more amused than ever, for she certainly does not), "but old Mother Brown—sorry, old Brown's mother—

looks about a thousand. I wonder what she'll look like when she's fifty—a million, I expect." "My dear hoy, you can't look a million." "You cnn't!' 1 said Youth; "lint just you watch old Mother Drown 1" "I think she likos looking older than she is," was the suggestion proffered here. "Well, all I can say is, it's awfully hard on old Brown. She might think of him first." Oh, "mothers of growing families," remember your family's idea of your duty. You hnve got to think of them first, and remain yonng to please them. And thinking of one's family just takes all some mothers' time, and most of their youth, 1 four. Old Brown would be very unhappy if his mother suddenly donned a pink and white complexion and the white muslin of sweet seventeen, but between that and looking a hundred (and .-. million at fifty), and being an awful old frump in tho eyes of other boys, there is a great gulf. I wonder if Youth, from tho son's point of view, appreciates a young-looking mother more than when it is a daughter. I should think that the very young-looking mother frequently worries the daughtor by entering, consciously or unconsciously, into competition with her. A young-looking mother cannot "queer a son's pitch" in tho same fashion I On the other hand, girls are often exceedingly proud of a youthful and pretty mamma, nnti would resent ns hotly as old Brown's friend one who looked a hundred and was an awful old frump. But Youth is cruel beyond measure when brown hair becomes gold (except for an inch at the roots), brown eyebrows grow black, and a twenty-three-inch waist tries to be eighteen. Youth will say most heart-breakingly tactless tilings about increasing weight, too, which have to he lived down somehow! Youth .will also give advice on the best method of keeping young, which sometimes makes Age's jaw drop with amazement. • Only last week a cycling grandmother was told it was a very good thing she weiit in for that sort of exercise, or probably at her ago she would take none at all, which lack of discrimination amused to the verge of tears the most energetic member of a hustling family. Youth does not like bright colours worn by its elders and bettors. 1 have seen the most juvenile white gown passed without comment, hut the very same frock, after a visit to the dyers, sternly condemned,in its pink reincarnation. And if a mother is so foolish as to dress like her daughter—a mistake except in astonishingly rare caseo—other people's daughters, if not h«r own, will be coldly severe on the subject. She (might have worn the same .gown, and have escaped criticism, if only her daughter had appeared in something else! With the imitation, tho effort to appear young became apparent. One may never reveal the effort —that at least must bo-decently hidden away. "Silly old woman" is' tho comment that careless Forty (to Fifty) brings upon herself—Forty (to Fifty) not having considered herself approaching middle-age. And this sort of thing is not confined to my sex. Not far from hero lives a man whoso contemporaries are never spoken of— or even thought of—as old, yet his is always called a silly old man, because he reveals his efforts to be thought young. "Old man?" said a shocked senior. "Why, what am I, then?" "You?" was the reply; "you're a boy! You're not always trying to make out you're young. Real boys never pretend to be babies." (It is a difficult world in places, take itall round, is it not?) But that is where the troublo comes_ in—Youth catching sight' of the offort. Youth commands that we remain trying to do so, or, at all events, without visible trying. And Youth is perfectly right. A well-dressed woman of my acquaintance made the mistake (at a garden party this summer) of appearing in a pretty pale grey frock which would have looked perfect crowned by the righthat, finished off -by a bebc cloche of most pronounced bobe-clochiness, with a big pink rose, and snme blue satin ribbons hanging down the back, and thereby provoking one to wonder for the first time, not how old she really was, but how old sho thought she looked! "Poor dear Miss -,"■ said a woman not half so well dressed, hut rt least fifteen years her junior, complacently squinting up. at the brim of her own dowdy old black "picture hat," "I wouldn't dream of wearing anything so young as that." "Why not?" said I. "If you can't wear that sort of hat at five-and-twenty, there must be. something radically wrong with you."