University of Virginia Library

GROWING OLD GRACEFULLY.

One would think the art of growing old gracefully would form a
prominent study with at least that portion of human race which is
happy enough to take an æsthetic view of common things. For
what can be a more universal concern? Who is heroically vain
enough to desire that departing charms should carry life with
them? Who is not liable to live beyond the time when to be is to
be charming?

It may safely be taken for granted, that every one likes to please;
there are hardly exceptions to prove the rule. Whatever subtile
disguises this love of pleasing may put on—however it may borrow
roughness, or carelessness, or egotism, or sarcasm, as its mask—
there it is, snug in the bottom of each human heart, from St. Simeon
Stylites shivering under the night-dews, to Jenny Lind flying from
adoring lion-hunters, and Pio Nono piously tapping his gold snuff-box,
and saying he is only a poor priest! The little boy who has
committed his piece with much labor of brain, much screwing of
body, and anxious gesticular tuition, utterly refuses to say it when
the time comes. Why? Not because he does not wish to please,
but because his intense desire to do so has suddenly assumed a new
form, that of fear; which like other passions, is very unreasonable.

The same cause will make a young lady who has bestowed much
thought on a new ball-dress, declare at the last moment, that she
does not want to go! A doubt has suddenly assailed her as to the
success of her costume. The dress is surely beautiful, but will it
make her so? No vigor of personal vanity preserves us from these
swoons of self-esteem; and they are terrible while they last. What
wonder, then, that the thought of a perpetual syncope of that kind
should make us behave unwisely sometimes?

This universal desire of pleasing, and in particular the branch of
it which we have just now in view—that which principally concerns
personal appearance—is far from deserving to be reckoned among
our weaknesses, though we may blush to own it. It is rather a
mark of weakness to disown it, especially as no one can ever do that
with perfect truth. The pride that leads us to pretend indifference,
is quite as mean as the unlawful arts, affectations, and sacrifices of
modesty, which an undue anxiety to please sometimes prompts, and
surely far less amiable. If we admire those who scorn to please by
the usual means, it is only as we prize a new zoological variety—for
its rarity, and for no grace or attractiveness, but rather the opposite.
`A scornful beauty' is only one who is less natural than her compeers;
who fancies she has discovered a new power; a witchery
more piquant to a certain class of observers. Take her at her word,
or at the word of her looks and behavior, and you would bring her
to terms very soon. Let her be neglected at one ball, or passed
unnoticed in Broadway, and she will soon confess her share in the
universal passion. There may indeed be found a class of egotists so
imbued with self-esteem, as never to be conscious of a feeling
amounting to a wish to please anybody; but this is because no
doubt on the subject ever troubles them; and they have been lifelong
bores to all about them—a fate nowise enviable. Better be

teased with anxiety to please beyond the limit allotted us by nature.
That is at least the more loveable extreme.

If we undertake the most imperfect examination of the means
given us by which to accomplish this natural desire of pleasing, we
shall be obliged to utter many commonplaces. We must say that
a sweet and loving disposition stands foremost, even in considering
looks; an inward feeling and habit of feeling which gives softness to
the eyes, and delicacy to the lips: a warmth of cheerfulness and
good will that lights up the face and smooths the brow: a sympathy
whose glow gives color to the cheek, and tenderness to the voice:
a hearty truthfulness, able to carry the most ordinary words right
to the bottom of the heart, and fix them there, in quiet trust and
sweet assurance. After all that has been said of `fascination,' in
connexion with handsome faces lacking this radiance of goodness and
truth, hardly any one will seriously dispute that no `set of features,
or complexion, or tincture of a skin' will compensate for the soul of
loveliness.

Yet these things have their charm, too; so great a charm, that we
are always ready, at first, to fancy that all lies beneath them that
should belong to them. A fair skin seems to bespeak a calm and
pure mind; a clear, full eye, truth and innocence; a blushing,
changing cheek, modesty and sensibility. Add to these rich and
beautiful hair, white teeth, and a radiant smile, and throw over the
whole the grace of symmetrical harmony, and we are prone to ascribe
virtue to the owner of attractions so potent, or rather we accept
the attractions, and take the virtues for granted. Mere beauty of
form and color has much to do with the pleasure of social life; for
we never can dissever from these the qualities they ought to bespeak.

Even dress has its value in increasing the pleasure of social intercourse,

or at least making some persons more acceptable to us than
others. Few will dispute that very outré or coarse or ungraceful
costume detracts from the pleasure they might feel in certain company,
or that it is often truly mortifying when those we love appear
in society ill-dressed; but we remember to have heard a lady go
beyond this degree of candor, in saying that she could not help
loving even her best friends the better for being elegantly dressed.
We are not all willing to own as much; but is there not, in truth,
something akin to this feeling, in the recollection of every person of
taste? The sentiments are so intimately interwoven, that it is hard
to define their boundaries. The pleasure we receive from the presence
of the beloved, is enhanced or diminished by a thousand
trifles; is not dress sometimes one of them? At least, we must
confess, that where those we only like are concerned, it makes a
good deal of difference.

We speak of dress as having expression;—as being sombre or
the contrary, and affecting our spirits for the moment correspondingly.
Bright and delicate colors are naturally agreeable to the eye,
and conducive to cheerfulness; so much so that many persons, not
willing to prolong the pain of sorrow, dislike to wear mourning,
simply because of its influence on the spirits. To natures thus impressive,
any dark uniformity of dress is unpleasing; they do not
like even to invite guests who will be sure to come in gloomy colors.
Bright tints are the natural symbols of joy, hope, gaiety; and the
susceptible love none other. Their sensitiveness confesses the need
of these among other defences against the insidious, creeping gloom
of life, which ever threatens us, as the sands of Egypt every open
space left unguarded.

Do we seem to have wandered from our theme? We have only
been approaching it. The reason why growing old gracefully has

become a theme at all is, that there have been complaints that the
art is not understood or the duty recognized. These complaints
have been made by two classes,—the young and the old; not at all
by those between youth and age. They are generally willing to let
the matter pass sub silentio. But what is the ground of complaint?
Twofold. With the young, who are buoyant, eager after their own
objects, and—with mildness be it hinted—a little apt to be self-satisfied,
it is that those who have passed through that stage are not
quite willing enough to retire and leave a clear field for others.
The intensity of interest with which the thoughts of débutants are
fixed on themselves and their companions is such, that it seems to
them somewhat impertinent in anybody else to live at all; unpardonable
to show any unwillingness to subside into a state of hibernation,
like other stupid animals. How unreasonable in ladies who
have lost their bloom to claim attention! How tiresome in gentlemen
old enough to desire sensible conversation, the attempt to
occupy the time devoted to flirtation!

With the old, the reproach is generally still more severe. `It is
quite time to be leaving off such follies and thinking of something
better.' Something better! Ah! there is the question. Is it better
to let the charms of youth depart without an effort, to invite the
steps of unlovely age, to forget the sympathies of early days, to forego
the society of the gay and cheerful, to put ourselves in the way
of becoming repulsive and censorious? Some people are constitutionally
moping and dissatisfied, and these are apt to be very cross
that everybody else is not so too. Tempers any gayer than their
own are necessarily `frivolous;' a relish for company which they are
unfitted to enjoy, `dissipated,' or `light-minded.' To dress cheerfully
and becomingly is considered as an attempt to affect youth;
to converse gaily, an unsuitable effort to attract admirers. There is

really no limit to the ungracious things said and looked by some
very dull people, who desire to get as many names as possible into
their own category. Nothing would please them better than
sumptuary laws which should proscribe certain colors, forms, and
ornaments of dress after a certain age; and if the ordinance could
be so devised as to prohibit laughing, and liveliness, and joining in
youthful pleasures, from and after the same period, it would be still
more gratifying. It were curious, but perhaps not profitable, to inquire
whether the amusement vulgarly called backbiting, would be
increased or diminished by such a law. Ah! those pale-green eyes!
We imagine them fixed upon us as we make these daring suggestions,
and our blood creeps as we write. We are ready to give in;
but candor and duty oblige us to proceed with a few words for the
weaker party.

Does not the unwillingness of the young to see their advantages
shared by those who have not full claim to them show how keenly
our common, human nature appreciates those advantages? And
what prompts the sharp remark but a desire to monopolize them?
Uncle Toby, when he put the troublesome fly out of the window,
said, `There is room enough in the world for thee and me.' Pity
but the young could apply this. `What a prodigious quantity of
Charlotte-Russe E— always eats!' said a certain person at supper.
We need not say that the certain person was very fond of
Charlotte-Russe. Virtuous indignation is very apt to have a little
personal feeling at the bottom. If there were an unlimited amount
of attention and admiration in every circle, so that each member of
it could be supplied to heart's content, the moral aspect of wishing
to be agreeable too late in life would not seem half so heinous to
those who now satirize it. Public opinion visits with great severity
all offences against property, because the public loves property above

all other things; and decorum is never so ferocious, as when unlawful
appropriation of kind, or approving, or admiring, words and
looks is in question; because even the decorous, in their secret hearts
covet these things with an intensity which they are reluctant to own,
and ill endure to see the general sum too much subdivided. We
must pardon the hypocrisy, which is often quite unconscious.

`But unworthy arts are practised.' What are they? We have
seen by what circumstances or qualities nature teaches us to please.
One of the most prominent of these is personal appearance. The
lapse of years steals the smoothness of the cheek and the rich color
of the hair; gives perhaps too much roundness or its more undesirable
opposite to the figure; changes even the expression of the
mouth, by secret inroads upon the teeth; softens the once firm
muscles, and thus impairs freedom and grace of movement; and in
many other ways, more or less conspicuous, indicates that the body
has culminated, passed its perfection, received a hint of decay. We
are not forgetting for a moment that all these changes have nothing
to do with decay of the mind; on the contrary, they are often the
very signs of its ripening. The kernel grows sweeter as its shell
dries and hardens. But no human creature is wholly indifferent to
human beauty; and with our instinctive knowledge of this truth, it
is as foolish to wish as it is unreasonable to expect that the moment
of threatened loss should be that of indifference.

The young may be comparatively careless on the subject of good
looks, for youth is beauty; yet even they are not often found wholly
neglectful of the means of enhancing this great advantage. Why
then grudge the use of dress and personal care to others who need
it so much more? Even what may be called, par excellence, the
arts of dress, are patronized by the young, or what would make our
dress-makers such expert padders and lacers, our milliners so skilful

in the choice and mingling of colors and textures? Above all, how
would our perfumers and cosmetic-venders make such speedy fortunes,
if they were not patronized by the young? The would-be
young are not a sufficiently numerous class to support half of them.
Even our coiffeurs and dentists depend for their customers more
upon the rising generation than upon the declining one. We would
venture a guess that ten times as many lotions for improving the
complexion, miraculous soaps to make soft white hands, dentifrices,
depilatories, and capilline balms, are sold to damsels and youths
under twenty, as are ever purchased by an equal number of people
over forty. The truth is, that by the time that mature age is
reached, most persons blessed with common sense have discovered
that these outward appliances have very little power to improve,
none at all to disguise. The idea that this power resides in anything
yet invented by the ingenuity or cupidity of man belongs, only
to the season of an intense and original verdancy. Nature, whose
decree it is that every passing thought and emotion, every lapsing
year, every illness, every grief, shall write itself legibly on face and
form, takes care that nothing shall counteract her design. No arts
are so sure to be baffled and exposed as cosmetic arts. It was only
the other evening that we saw a lady of a certain age with a face
and neck like ivory or alabaster, cheeks softly tinged with rose,
and hair that rivalled jet in blackness and lustre. Her toilet had
been most successful; but what was the result? Why, that the
youngest and least practised eye in the room detected every imposture
at a glance, and found the face as uninteresting as those revolving
countenances in hairdressers' windows, glaring at you with a
hideous, fixed smile, and eyes which have no speculation in them.
`Made up!' was the contemptuous sentence on every lip. The
flattering assurance given to the poor lady by her glass was one of
those delusions by which the father of lies induces the victims of
vanity to sign away their souls; which `keep the word of promise
to the ear, but break it to the sense;' conferring the coveted beauties
but depriving them of all power to charm. Most melancholy are
these errors, to the looker-on of any sensibility or kind feelings.

Deception with regard to age, then, we look upon as out of the
question; what is left to quarrel with? Too much gaiety of dress
or manner? Why, when gaiety of any kind is not too abundant in
society, and too many people frequent it looking memento mori in
every feature? We ought to be grateful to the few who can, from
whatever motive, help to throw a little sunshine on society. If
their light be slightly refracted, we are not to condemn it as
spurious. Why is gaiety unsuitable after youth is passed? Only
because we are not used to it. The tendency of life is to extinguish
it;—of life, though never so prosperous and happy. Few have
courage enough to cultivate cheerfulness of thought; still fewer,
cheerfulness of behavior, which costs an effort. We have learned,
therefore, to consider grave manners as alone suitable to mature
years; and we are apt to antedate the period at which `mature'
years ought in conscience to be considered as begun. It is, after all,
a strange jealousy this! It confesses its nature at every turning,
yet it insists upon being considered the champion of virtue. That
is an old trick of selfishness.

But when elderly people are accused of undue youthfulness of
dress or manner, it is usually accompanied with some suspicion of a
design upon the other sex. Is such design, then, the ground of
gay dress and manner in the young? And if so, and it be considered
innocent in them, is it contemptible in the more advanced?
At what age is man or woman too old to desire happiness? If
ill-success attend the forced buddings of this second spring, as it is

very likely to do, does it not constitute a sufficient punishment for
the attempt to break through Nature's thorny hedges? If
prosperity, then must we conclude the aspirant wise, the objector
foolish, and—envious. Such things have been, and the satirists, left
behind, have had to gnash their mental teeth in impotent
vexation.

But, after saying thus much, it may be requisite for us to protest
that we are quite aware of the truly ridiculous figure sometimes
exhibited by an antiquated boy or superannuated girl who is weak
enough to make spasmodic and ghastly efforts at the manners and
appearance of youth. We have not a word to say in defence
of these punchinelloes, but give them over to the tender mercies of
Dickens, Thackeray, and other dissectors of human character and
folly. They are usually people who never were anything but
emptiness:

Happily such instances are few, in our state of society, at least.
For one aged butterfly we have a dozen prematurely old and
morbidly grave people, who seem to think goodness and attractiveness
incompatible, and amusement a weak, if not a sinful,
indulgence. We feel sometimes almost ready to compound for a
few belated friskers, by way of variety.

Allowing, however, that there are, even among us, some whom a
desire of being agreeable betrays into unbecoming behavior,—
for we would not be understood to insinuate that a fine instinct will
not guide each period of life to a style of manners peculiarly suited
to itself,—let us inquire to what temptation is the error owing.
We have seen that the secret wish of every heart is to please,—to
be acceptable,—to be sought. All like to be invited,—to read

in the eyes of those about them that their company gives pleasure.
All dread the cold shoulder, the listless eye, the unready hand.
None but a cynic chooses to be omitted when a party is made up,
or put off with an apology instead of a visit. Now, in the very
nature of things, the insidious approach of years must bring round
the point at which such neglect will, under ordinary circumstances,
be felt to begin. The changes of life separate us from our original
companions, and bring us into contact with all ages. Perhaps it is
our lot to find agreeable young people, and rather indolent or
unsocial elder ones. But the young do not seek us naturally,
unless we are in some degree conformed to them; unless we
keep up a youthful interest in their pursuits, sympathize in their not
always wise wishes, and lead them, by some sacrifice or accommodation,
to forget the additional experience which might otherwise
inspire some dread of our severer notions. Is not here an inducement—we
will not say a temptation, for that implies wrong—to
keep young as long as possible? Candid married ladies confess,
sometimes, the secret pang with which they first found themselves
left out when a `young' party was made up,—the said young party
consisting of the very friends and associates to whom they had been
all in all but a little while before. Wherefore this omission?
Because there was an idea of diminished or transferred sympathies.
Far more cutting must be the first perception of a change of this
sort to the unmarried, who can refer it only to the hopeless
disadvantage of increasing years. These compulsory shadows on
one's life must be chilling indeed. No wonder we should desire to
keep on the sunny side of the Rubicon. If the young are disposed
to sneer at those who are not willing to be old, let them rather
cultivate in themselves a more humane feeling towards the frontier
people,—dwellers in the Debatable Land, always an unquiet
position. Let them show less eagerness to monopolize youth, and
others will be less eager to cling to it. Of all castes yet devised for
partitioning society, this of years is the least dignified and the most
offensive; and of all countries, this of ours, which professedly
repudiates caste, is foremost in this division. It would seem as if
the national youthfulness had expressed itself in the maxims of
social life, making it, by the supreme law of fashion, un-American
to be anything but young. What was Bryant thinking of, when he
wrote, in one of the most glorious of his poems,—

Why, she `isn't anything else!' if we may judge by the general
aspect of most of our companies, where young girls (and boys) not
only enjoy, but claim, the `largest liberty,' allowing it to others in
such modicums as they judge expedient. We are assured—but
this we will not vouch for—that in certain quarters it is thought
rather impertinent if mammas or married sisters do not withdraw
into the shade on all occasions of reunion for merry doings. Travellers
in the United States have repeatedly recorded their astonishment
at this peculiar state of things:—that the approach to
maturity incapacitates—and especially ladies—for American society.
This is really enough to make one paint, patch, and powder; dye
one's hair and eyebrows, and wear false curls and braids, teeth,
beards, and mustaches; suffer the martyrdom of tight shoes on
agricultural feet, obviate every awkward deficiency or redundance
of nature with whalebone and cotton batting, and, in short do all
those dreadful things which draw upon desperate people, disposed
to catch at straws on the ocean of Time, the reproach of not growing

old gracefully! Who likes to be laid on the shelf, and medicined
there with such placebos as—`Dear Aunt Sally! she hates
dress, and does so love to be alone!' or—`That good soul, Cousin
Thomas! he is always pleased when others enjoy themselves, but
he does not care for society!'—instead of hearty invitations?

It is a very odd thing, seeing that the course of time invariably
robs everybody of youth, that those who are on the high road to age,
and hoping with all their hearts to arrive there, should so hate every
one of the inevitable milestones on the way. `All men think all
men mortal but themselves.' What an inexhaustible fund of jokes
is afforded by the failing eyes of our friends! what rich amusement
in rheumatism or corns! It seems not always to be easy for the
sufferer to join in the laugh; but we liked the quiet answer of a
friend whose white hairs were the subject of ridicule: `Our blessings
brighten as they take their flight!' One would think certain
favored individuals had been insured against losses of this sort; but,
among all the modes devised for equalizing the ills of life, there has
not yet appeared one that offers remedy or indemnity for faded
charms. If there were, what a prodigious run it would have!
Those whose wit is rifest on these points—and there are some who
really seem to enjoy the symptoms of decay in their best friends—
would betray the latent dread of their own hearts by being first on
the books. They would acknowledge the importance of being
insured against ridicule and neglect during the period in which the
aspect of age is as yet strange, and therefore unwelcome. Happily
this season is not of very long duration, for it brings with it the
pain common to all down-hill travelling before the muscles have
become used to their new action.

This overweening estimate of youth bespeaks a low idea of the
materials of which agreeable society should be composed. `None

grow old,' says Madame Rahel, `but they who were never anything
but young.' The qualities which make people agreeable in
the highest degree are those with which age latest interferes; and
if there have originally been anything of value in the mind, experience
must ripen and bring it to perfection. Information increases
with years with all but absolute fools; and sympathy need not be
lessened if the trials of life be put to their best use. Impetuosity
may have faded; but if in its stead,
bring also patience, consideration, allowance, judgment, and kindly
feeling, why need we regret it? If we have fewer prejudices,
greater facility of generous admiration, more accurate and cultivated
taste, a wider range of interest; if, in parting with a portion of our
early fire, we have lost none of our genial warmth; if the friends
that remain are the more precious because of those who are gone,
and this life the more beautiful inasmuch as we have learned to discern
more clearly its connection with another: surely we should
not be dismissed from the social circle because our outward grace
and transitory bloom have fled; cast on the stream of Time, like
dead garlands after a festival—fit only to prepare the soil for other
flowers equally fleeting. At the period of middle life of which we
speak, the good have earned the right to be plain without being
considered repulsive; if they cannot beautify society, they may at
least adorn it. Dancing they may think proper to lay aside, but
for conversation they are better fitted than ever, and even the young
cannot always dance. Music is not yet prohibited to the mature,
nor the hundred fireside games that make the winter's evening pass
so merrily. Flirtation may be a little out of season with them, but
does not this make them all the more desirable companions for a
certain class of young people, who could hardly bear to share their
chief pleasure with even their dearest friends?

If we had power to sketch our ideal of one who is learning to
take worthily the first steps on the down-hill of life, we should, it is
true, mingle no inconsiderable leaven of seriousness with the cheerful
light we love to see thrown over the character. Sadness and
sweetness are not, in our view, irreconcileable; indeed we think
sometimes of a sweet sadness as something fascinating beyond the
gaiety which carries with it an unpleasant suspicion of blunted sensibilities.
Yet we desire no morbid seriousness. We ask sunshine
from the heart; true, loving sympathy with young and old, the dear
result of reflection and kind offices; an intelligent interest in every
possible improvement; an incessant cultivation of every talent and
faculty, joined with a love of imparting that makes it impossible to
withhold; a power of self-adaptation, the growth of active, moulding
affection:—and constant employment for all these qualifications.
If we are for no exclusions, we are for no sinecures; if we would
have our friends sought, we would also have them worth seeking.
No fainéants in the field! Good and true devoir and service, as
well as an honorable place at the feast!