A LADY'S LETTER FROM HOME.

Otago Witness, Issue 1248, 30 October 1875, Page 2

A LADY'S LETTER FROM HOME.

August is here, with her delightfully cool misty mornings — her glorious golden noons and moonlit evenings ! The spiders are weaving their gossamer webs over the country hedge-rows to catch the first glory, and (must I add) the first flies abroad on these glorious autumn mornings.

London is deserted by fashion, and birds are perishing on Highland moors by the hands of heroes who shoot them down for lack of nobler sport. But it is not with the world of fashion that my mind is filled today. lam going to write of simple humanity in its uninteresting phase of middle age — the middle age that ia met with now in this nineteenth century. We will gossip over the changes time has wrought upon the much used and much abused middle age. We will try to find out whether it is a better thing than it used to be, and whether we can make it better than it is.

You wonder what could possibly have suggested a Bubject at first glance so unpromising, and I answer that I write about it because I havo been thinking about it, and think about it because we are just now in the sweet middle age of this year of grace 1875. There are deep rich tints among the forest trees — a vivid, yet sombre colouring on the hedges, velvety bloom on grape, and peach, and plum, and a golden wealth among the bending corn. I suppose a man in the prime of life is very much now- a days, as far as repute, appearance, and feeling, the same as such a one was a hundred years ago. In his August, or Augustan epoch, he is now, as he used to be, often very careworn, with his scars fresh and unhealed, restless, and anxious ; sometimes, though, you find him jaunty and foppish, and particular with regard to his dress and appearance ; he is experienced, if he ever is to be ; if he has been wild, he begins to think it is time to reform ; he is rarely enthusiastic, and always difficult to excite, except when you approach his hobby. We find him reliable, capable, and understanding the secrets hidden in the bud of youth time has let out by unsheathing the flower. His metal is supposed to have gone through the fire, and, if not seven times refined, its quality is at least proved. But what about the next generation. We are bringing it up in these days of fast living in such a manner, that those who belong to it will have lived out their youth and have stepped into the middle aged experienced epoch before they are of age. This must be a mistake, for civilization, instead of accelerating, decidedly retards (development. The savage, like the cabbage — (please overlook the rhyme !)— quickly reaches maturity, but the child of culture attains it only slowly like the oak. The blase youth of one or two and twenty, the thorough little woman of the world, just eighteen — cannot really be developed j they have none of the ripeness of ripe fruit, they are more like the blighted specimens which follow too quickly on the blossom ; rosy and bright they may be, but they are cankered at the core ; artificial means have been used to push on the fruit, which, if left to sweet Dame Nature, would have come to maturity slowly, surely, steadily, but perfectly. How will the boys and girls of to-day do in their coming middle-age ? They are banished from their Eden in their teens, because, too early, they have not been tempted, but permitted to eat of the fruit of the forbidden tree of the knowledge of good and evil ; they will have to wander in a world of thorns and thistles.

I fear theirs will be like the middle-age of our American cousins*, who fade early and look prematurely old before they reach the half-way stone; and, what is worse, long after that, when an Englishman's character would be thoroughly established, often change from respectable citizens into tremendous swindlers. I have noticed that those whose youth has been carefully hedged in, to whom its dreams and delights come late, come in as it were for a second youth in their middle age — not so bright as the first, but it brings with it the leisure to enjoy. In these case 3 the figure and general comeliness is preserved, the face unwrinkled, or, if Beamed, is not marred, the eyes still look bright and young, for out of them looks a heart which has never trampled oa its youth.

After all, youth ia not to a man what it is to a woman — a kind of priceless pearl. From -the-oradle-to-the-ar-ave-he-ia— x«itted._Bpoilt, waited on, flattered, respected, and courted. He is, if anything, moie considered in his old age, with his withered laurals round his brow, resting after the conflict, than he was when fighting the battle and winning his hard-earned renown ; but for a woman, unless she be remarkably clever, good, or accomplished, to lose her youth is almost to lose all for this world. While she is young, she too is petted, flattered, and courted; but with the " coming of the crow's feet" comes too "the backward turn of beaux' feet." If she be a wife and mother, she may not perhaps so much regret a youth which she sees being revived and perhaps improved upon in the beings around her ; but the single woman — she whom mischance, coquetry, or perhaps even tragedy, has destined to a Bolitiry life — when her youth is gone, she is derisively called an old maid, and, later on, an old woman.

Middle aged ladies certainly look better now than they used to when I was a child. How well I remember them ! They used to wear plain clingingly full dresaes, the ' same all round, a shawl pinned tightly round the throat, a large bonnet, which projected over the face, with a gay ribbon, crossed over the centre, with a curtain to match, to shelter the tair neck from sun and wind. The hair was neatly drawn down against t*ne cheek almost to the chin. I recollect the impression some of these ladies made upon me nearly a generation since. — (Yes, I confess it, we may never meet. lam a middle-aged woman. ) How 1 used to wonder at church, gazing at these women — demure, devout, unattractive, Btatuelike — in my childish brain of five years, why the clergyman took the trouble to read out the commandment he persisted in reading every Sunday — "Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's wife." To my childish taste these neighbours' wives were not only uncovetable, but, what ia more — hideous. Now-a-days children have no instinctive dislike to the wives and matrons. They admire them in a grown-up sort of way, wish to make their acquaintance, and describe them as young or pretty, as the case may be. Dress must certainly be more becoming, or perhaps an elderly style is not adopted so early.

Before we leave the subject of middle-aged women, 1 will transcribe for your amusement a few names of women who have preserved their power of fascination, in some cases long after they had passed their prime. Helen of Troy, for whose fair sake men fought ages ago, and quarrel aud write even now, was over 40 when she eloped with unscrupulous Paris. Pericles married the talented Aspasia at 36. Cleopatra was past 30 when Anthony became her captive. Livia at 33 won the heart of Augustus. Diane de Poicfciers was 36 when Henry 111., then Duke of Orleans, became attached to her. It was this famous beauty who declared that the secret of the preservation of her charms was nothing more than the daily use of a cold bath, winter and summer. Ninon de l'Enclos, a most celebrated wit and beauty, was the idol of three generations, and, to crown all, when she was 72, the Abbe de Bernis fell in love with her. She, however, possessed a remarkable combination of culture, talents, and personal attractions. Madame de Recamier at 38 was declared the most beautiful woman in Europe, and that rank she held for 15 years. I have given you the list very much as I found it. It speaks for itself, and proves that the power of fascination and early youth are not always inseparable, as the novels till quite lately would have us believe.

In these the heroine is rarely above eighteen, and the hero, a callow stripling of twenty-two, is made to do duty for a much more interesting and experienced man of maturer years. In some of tho good novels of late, I have perceived a change (you will remember I am thirty-five, so I am pleased to see the change), the heroine is allowed to be older, thirty, or even more, stately, grave perhaps, but fascinating still. In the olden days, those good old dark days, such instances as these I have given you of prolonged youth, were described to be due to Borne uncanny contract, made by its possessor with powers which shall remain unnamed; but now we know better, and in our wisdom ascribe it to a rare combination of beauty and talent, with a kind of social magnetism. A talented accomplished woman, though she possess few, if any, personal attractions, can never, even in extreme old age, be an object of neglect ; but if, as oometimes happens, she is endowed with till these gifts, there scarcely seems a limit o her power ; and if she ranks herself on

the side of right, she leads on to conquer, like another Joan of Arc. Too often, however, Buch gifted women know of no God but self, and ruthlessly immolate human victims on their altars. As such they pass away, (brilliant, meteor-like, remembered, but useless ; or perhaps they are more like the forked lightning, which scathes where it falls.

But such vain women are not the women I have in my mind when I think of a middleaged woman, a women in her August month, and my ideal. She should be calm, courteous, fresh, and loving, and in harmony with the month. She should put away the bright pinks and brilliant blues she wore in her youth, to wear in their stead the August colours. They may be rich and* deep ; her dress may be beautified with lace ; she must not be ashamed of her gray hairs ; her eyes must be quiet, loving, bright, and even young, like the sunrise of an autumn morning. She should move sedately, speak musically and low, and dress becomingly, following a little in the wake of Fashion, not treading on her heels. Her dress should not be old-fashioned, for an old fashion adds as many years to its wearer as the fashion is old. Above all, she must not be careless in dress, manner, or tone, nor neglect to keep up the accomplishments and tastes which united to make her attractive in earlier years. All this has to do with externals, but little will it avail if in the heart there is the canker worm of jealousy, envy, or disappointment. Nature teaches us what to do with our middie age. She turns her green foliage into golden or crimson glory, and harmonises all. In the spring boldly Bhools up the yellow crocus ; in autumn ita lilac namesa&e, less jaunty, more fragile, but lasting, takes its place. Yes, if our hearts are the home of love and content there is no reason why our life's autumn should be dreary, less fresh than its spring it may be, yet perhaps more beautiful. At thirty-five Willis wrote the lines I add below, though they come like a November fog or December blast over my August dream : — Give Youth and Hope a parting tear, Look onward with a placid brow ; Hope promised but w> bring us here, And Reason takes the guidauce now. One backward 100k — the last— the last ! Ono silent tear — for Youth is past.

Yes, youth is past, and so is the spring of the year; but we do not mourn for the spring, but gather with gratitude and gladness August flowers, and pill up in luscious tempting profusion August fruits, and garner in August harvests in the grand glory of our autumn dress.