HOW I SHALL GROW OLD.

Dunstan Times, Issue 3140, 23 October 1922, Page 7

HOW I SHALL GROW OLD.

(By Margaret ((onion.) d ho cruel white light of the moorland morning I'eil upon tin* mirror as [ gazed spellbound ar the reflection of my face. Alas! there was no mistaking it —that tiny mark on the hither side of my eye like a scratch from Time’s claw. It war a- wrinkle- —my first wrinkle! What words can paint the agony of that moment to a woman ! As I. mused upon the tragic discovery a vision of myself when many ugly sisters of that wrinkle should have come to keep it company rose up in my mind, f thought of all the conventional phrases about ‘"growing old gracefully, ’ which convey no hint as to how the miracle is to he accomplished. Mow. 1 asked myself, can one merit the description of ‘‘a well-preserved woman,” which someone will some day apply to me? ! shall begin, as befits all the daughters of men, by ighting the enemy. My defensive tactics' will not include cosmetics, hut they will include a. watchful care of my face and figure and the employment of all those' hygienic munitions which the science of beauty has invented to shield women against the pit i less a( I ack of Time. But above all 1 shall he on my guard against trying to overshoot the mark. To aim at looking more than ten years younger than your age is simply to court a ridiculous failure. When I turn llee horrible corner ol forty 1 shall scrap with a remorseless hand all dresses and hats that suggest twentylive. To cover your retreat is an essential manoeuvre in good strategy. And remember that the battle between woman and time is, from the bodily point, of'view, a losing battle. To grow old gracefully is only to retard yoar inevitable defeat. .But if in the physical sense, you can’t prevent the springtime of your beauty growing into autumn's “sere and yellow leaf.” you can keep the youth, of your smd from withering into a sour old age. Mere the victory is yours if you will. You can save your mind from petrifying like a worn-out machine. Von can keep your heart green even if your hair is grey. So on the day when my mirror revealed the liivt wrinkle on my face i registered a< vow that ! would tolerate no wrinkles on my soul. In order to remain young in spirit one mnsl. however. he ready to renounce the pursuit ■ and pleasure of life’s springtime when ant ninll is at hand. To persist in doing with flagging energy the things one formerly did with zest and joy will only make: you fern I as old as Methuselah. What one mnsl never give up is one's sympathy with young 'life and one’s interest in new thoughts and in new ideas'. Always ih' world is moving on. and I mean to move with it. even when an easy chair h\ the fireside' becomes my portion. Then my hoy and girl friemK will whisper tlu:;r love stories, and my contemporaries their troubles, into my while wig. sure, both of them, ol s\ 111pat In and understaudiug. for like Babin Ben Ezra, in Browning's humor lai poem. “! shall know, being old." if beauty fades “courage and iailb endure.”