LOVE LATE IN THE DAY.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume VII, Issue 1128, 22 September 1880, Page 2

LOVE LATE IN THE DAY.

Lord Beaconsfield tell ui,^ in • one of his later novels, that the frigid indifference exhibited, by $he young merf of the age, in matters of the .heart, is' partly atoned for By the ardour of the septuagenarians, in the white- haired (or alas ! bald-headed) Adonis, " love is. enough," whilst the ''curled darling," still on the sunny side, of^3o, affects to sneer at the grand passion, and declares himifelf invulnerable tothe arrows of the rosy god. Jddging by a recent eiample, this aphorism of thq author... of. "Lpthair,"is equally applicable to the fairer half of the creation. Society in - England would appear to have been somewhat startled by the announcement •that the Baroness Biirdett-Cbutts proposes to bestow her hand on a gentleman of leas thaa half her years; Her Majesty, to whom the Baroness had intimated her matrimonial intentions, has, it seemsi expressed her disapproval of the contemplated match,- and "immense pressure "has been brought to bear against it from other quarters. But the enamoured and venerable lady, apparently with. that subiinte-iadifference to all prudential and pecuniary constderahons .wlenttnS^afffecrions are concerned: .;^jarac*briies the sex, whether; "maidens of". bashfd fifteen" or Platonic spinsters of sixt> or seventy odd, is willing to-prove. her • . devotfofftothe man of her choice by the sacrifice of half her fortuhe on .the hymenial altar. Readers of "%rl'Bl»B "wiil; perhaps, "he reminded by the- incident of the story of the old Spanish lady, who the yoiithful hidalgo, with the sole objectof being able to place her wealth at his disposal, without comprising her reputation, arid who, after the marriage ceremony, had been' pefformecl, completed the happiness of the bridegroom byiraforming him that their relations were to continue as they were before— strictly those, of a mother and son; : : Is it not possible that the philanthropic English baroness, in choosing to wed Mr. Ashmead'Baf tlett, 'may have been actuated by motives as purely disinterested and impersonal as those of the. chaste Castilian- dame. Think of this ye. cynics, and. forbear, to jest. . , ."...'