THE IRRIGATION AGE. 



421 



AT THIRTY-FIVE. 

 At the age of 35 a woman is usually 

 either a philosopher or a fool. Fool or 

 philosopher, according to the way she 

 views the past and faces the future. 



At 35 neither young nor old her po- 

 sition corresponds somewhat to that of the 

 lanky, growing girl, who is too old to play 

 childish games but too young to do up her 

 hair and put on long gowns. It is the 

 awkward transition period. The woman 

 of 35 has come to the parting of the ways. 

 Having reached the outskirts of youth, 

 she has not yet crossed the border into 

 middle age. 



Now, verily youth is a beautiful thing, 

 and no woman parts with it willingly. Yet, 

 willy nilly. part with it she must at 35. 

 The fool is she who struggles and fights 

 against the inevitable. The philosopher 

 she who looks the situation squarely in 

 the face and accepts it if not cheerfully, 

 at least with an imitation of cheerfulness 

 that passes muster for the genuine article. 

 She looks into her mirror, sees the mature 

 figure, the double chin, perhaps, and says 

 to herself: 



'The arrangement of my hair is too 

 girlish; makes me riduculous. It's time 

 for me to give up baby-ribbon effects." 



We all know the woman on the wrong 

 side of 30 who refuses to admit her age, 

 who regards herself and wishes others to 

 regard her as something between dear 20 

 and delightful 25. Her mirror might 

 shout "35 " every time she gazed into it, 

 yet she would go on making the toilet of 

 20. Having ears, she refuses to hear. 

 Having eyes, she sees yes. she sees the 

 lines and crows' feet, but puts them to 

 rout, so far as she is able, with massage, 

 cold creams and complexion brushes. 

 Those which will not be smoothed away by 

 such means she conceals under powder, 

 rouge and one of those flimsy veils which 

 make the plain woman pretty and the 

 pretty woman a vision of loveliness. 



In war paint and feathers she looks 



young quite young to the casual observer. 

 But this woman is a cheat, a fraud, and 

 her youthful appearance a delusion. Al- 

 though she elects herself a member of 

 youth, she cannot, without making her ef- 

 forts nil, "go in" for tennis, golf," rowing, 

 bathing, and all those forms of outdoor 

 sports which make Miss Twenty fascinat- 

 ing in spite of disheveled tresses. Those 

 same sports make Miss Thirty-five a fright. 

 Poor fool! She can't be young, and she 

 won't be old, so after the fashion of the 

 donkey who starved to death between two 

 haystacks she has neither the pleasure of 

 the one nor the other. 



The fool being a fool cannot under- 

 stand that the philosopher has pleasures, 

 and that they are broader, deeper, better, 

 and more satisfying than those which 

 should appeal only to honest but frivolous 

 young womanhood. 



It goes without saying that the phil- 

 osopher has brains, and these she uses 

 with profit to herself and others. Merely 

 by turning her thoughts to other things 

 than those connected with personal adorn- 

 ment, her mind and character broaden. 

 She becomes less selfish noble. She 

 thinks and reasons more. Books that 

 were once read carelessly take on a deeper 

 meaning. The beauties in nature and art 

 she feels and enjoys as never before. 

 Sorrow and suffering of all kinds awaken 

 her sympathy and pity. She condemns less 

 readily, and forgives more quickly than in 

 the days when impulse good-natured or 

 otherwise alone governed her actions. 

 She finds friends true, staunch friends 

 in both sexes, and in all sorts and condi- 

 tions of men, women and children. 



Our philosopher has not yet forgotten 

 the joys and woes of childhood. She still 

 feels an interest in gay and effervescent 

 youth. She glances backward at the past. 

 Ah, how quickly the years have fluwn! 

 Then toward the future. And the glance, 

 reveals old age in a new light, and makes 

 her tender and pitiful to the physical in- 



