YOUTH OVER-RATED?

Evening Star, Issue 22004, 13 April 1935, Page 24

YOUTH OVER-RATED?

CHARM OF MATURITY Most people arc apt to regard middle age as a losing battle against grey liair and-the middle-aged spread, and tail to see ils advantages. This attitude is largely duo to the fact that we over-estimate tlio joys of being young. Youth is supposed to be the gayest and happiest period of outlives, when we set forth to conquer the world, with a schoolgirl complexion and a handful of dreams as our stock-in-trade. But we soon find that they are not enough Our dreams are apt to vanish m disillusionment, and youthful bloom is a poor substitute for experience and balance in meeting all the troubles we have to face. Indeed, the charm and poise of maturity far outweigh the freshness of youth. A man may be attracted by a rosebud complexion and a sylph-like form, but finding a lack of experience and understanding of life, he turns away disappointed. He may. meet the same woman ten years later and be attracted, not by her youthful charm, but by the range of her knowledge and the sense of depth and balance revealed in her conversation. But the gifts of middle age are not offered to the woman who spends all her energy in the effort to maintain the outward forms of youth. New Interests, Kyen if she succeeds she still does not retain “ that first fine careless rapture which is the essential charm of youth. It is more likely that she fails to achieve even the outward show and merely makes herself ridiculous. But the woman who accepts the fact that youth cannot last for ever and looks forward instead to the next stage of life, with its new possibilities and new interests, will have a rich reward. She will have the happiness that comes only Avith increasing experience and knowledge of life, and perhaps for 1 the first time she will begin to fee) the jiower which is exercised' by a mature and well-balanced personality.