GETTING OLD.

Pelorus Guardian and Miners' Advocate., Volume 22, Issue 93, 1 December 1911, Page 2

GETTING OLD.

THE DEPARTURE OP YOUTH. I see, among the minor tragedies of London life which do not make one cheerful at the breakfast-fable, that a woman has comitted suicide because she was afraid of getting old. Not afraid of death, you see, but of losing her youthfulness. She was just a little over thirty. I do not know her private story. Yet I think I can guess at the causes of her despair. For all of us who are out of the twenties remember a dark day when*-for the first time a voice whispered in our ears “Yon are growing old !” They are not pleasant,, words. They strike a little chill at the heart. They make one realise with a swift vision -how 'Short' is life, and how little one has done. HOW THE YEARS SLIP BY. In the early twenties the years seemed to roll out before one in a long and glorious vista. One made prophecies. “Before I am thirty I shall be earning my £IOOO a year.” “Before I am thirty I shall have written my big book, or made my name, or done great work.’ But the years slip by, and when the fatal year is reached is still struggling with poverty. The big ‘ book is not yet written. The great work is still undone. Then gradually is borne home to one that the first flush of youth has gone. One is no longer the leading juvenile or the promising young man. Younger brothers have grown up and have entered into competition for the laurels. Babies that one played bears with in the nurseries have become pretty girls with lovers. Good heavens, some of them are marrying and having babies of their own ! THE HUMDRUM OP LIFE. That makes one feel pretty old. Habits grow upon one. They make a hard crust at out us, we have convictions, too, v.here formerly we had only prejudices. It is a had sign. We. have lost the old raptures of youth. We read ths books that thrilled us ten years before. The snap has gone out of them. The playhouse has lost its glamours. Some of the actresses have grown old with us. We have settled down into the quiet humdrum of life. No longer does one expect an adventure at every street corner. The bubble has gone out of the wine of life, and it is rather flat and stale. —Philip Gibbs, in the "Chronicle.”