| | | | | | Nothing is more incomprehensible to girls than the love | and admiration sometimes given to middle-aged women. | They cannot understand it; and nothing but experience | will ever make them understand it. In their eyes, a | woman is out of the pale of personal affection altogether | when she has once lost that shinning gloss of youth, that | exquisite freshness of skin and suppleness of limb, which | to them, in the insolent plenitude of their unfaded beauty, | constitute the chief claims to admiration of the one sex | from the other. And yet they cannot conceal from | themselves that the pretty maid of eighteen is often | deserted for the handsome woman of forty, and that the | patent witchery of their own youth and brilliant colouring | goes for nothing against the mysterious charms of a | mature siren. What can they say to such an anomaly? | There is no good in going about the world disdainfully | wondering how on earth a man could ever have taken up | with such an antiquated creature! ~~ suggestively asking | their male friends what could he see in a woman of her | age, old enough to be his mother? There the fact stands; | and facts are | | stubborn things. The eligible suitor who has been | coveted by more than one golden-haired girl has married | a woman twenty years her senior, and the middle-aged | siren has quietly carried off the prize which nymphs in | their teens have frequently desired to win. What is the | secret? How is it done? The world, even of silly girls, | has got past any belief in spells and talismans, such as | Charlemagne’s mistress wore, and yet the man’s | fascination seems to them quite as miraculous and almost | as unholy as if it had been brought about by the black art. | But if they had any analytical power they would | understand the diablerie of the | mature siren clearly enough; for it is not so difficult to | understand when one puts one's mind to it. | In the first place, a woman of ripe age has a knowledge of | the world, and a certain suavity of manner and moral | flexibility, wholly wanting to the young. Young girls are | for the most part all angles ~~ harsh in their judgments, | stiff in their prejudices, narrow in their sympathies. They | are full of combativeness and self-assertion if they belong | to one type of young people, or they are stupid and shy if | they belong to another type. They are talkative with | nothing to say, and positive with nothing known; or they | are monosyllabic dummies who stammer out Yes or No | at random, and whose brains become hopelessly confused | at the first sentence with which the stranger, to whom | they have just been introduced, attempts to open a | conversation. They are generally | | without pity; their want of experience making them hard | towards sorrows which they do not understand ~~ let us | charitably hope also making them ignorant of the pain | they inflict. That famous article in the | Times on the cruelty of young girls, | apropos of Constance Kent's | confession, though absurdly exaggerated, had in it the | core of truth which gives the sting to such papers, which | makes them stick, and which is the real cause of the | outcry they create. | Girls are cruel; there is no question about it. If passive | rather than active, they are simply indifferent to the | sufferings of others; if of a more active temperament, | they find a positive pleasure in giving pain. A girl will | say horribly cruel things to her dearest friend, then laugh | at her because she cries. Even her own mother she will | hurt and humiliate if she can; while, as for any | unfortunate aspirant not approved of, were he as | tough-skinned as a rhinoceros she would find means to make | him wince. But all this acerbity is toned down in the | mature woman. Experience has enlarged her sympathies, | and knowledge of suffering has softened her heart to the | sufferings of others. Her lessons of life too, have taught | her tact; and tact is one of the most valuable lessons that a | man or woman can learn. She sees at a glance the weak | points and sore places in her companion, and she avoids | them; or if she passes over them, it is with a hand so soft | and tender, a touch so soothing, that she calms instead of | irritating. A girl would have come down | | on those weak places heavily, and would have torn off the | bandages from the sore ones, jesting at scars because she | herself had never felt a wound, and deriding the | sybaritism of diachylon because ignorant of the anguish it | conceals. | Furthermore, the mature siren is thoughtful for others. | Girls are self-asserting and aggressive. Life is so strong | in them, and the instinct which prompts them to try their | strength with all comers and to get the best of everything | everywhere, is so irrepressible, that they are often | disagreeable because of that instinctive selfishness, that | craving, natural to the young, of taking all and giving | back nothing. But the mature siren knows better than this. | She knows that social success entirely depends on what | each of us can throw into the common fund of society; | that the surest way to win consideration for ourselves is | to be considerate for others; that sympathy begets liking, | and self-suppression leads to exaltation; and that if we | want to gain love we must first show how well we can | give it. Her tact then, and her sympathy, her moral | flexibility and quick comprehension of character, her | readiness to give herself to others, are some of the | reasons, among others, why the society of a cultivated | agreeable woman of a certain age is sought by those men | to whom women are more than mere mistresses or toys. | Besides, she is a good conversationalist. She has no | pretensions to any special or deep learning ~~ for, if | pedantic, she is spoilt as a siren at any age ~~ but she | knows a little about most things; at all | | events, she knows enough to make her a pleasant | companion in a tete-a-tete or at a | dinner-table, and to enable her to keep up the ball when | thrown. And men like to talk to intelligent women. They | do not like to be taught nor corrected by them, but they | like that quick sympathetic intellect which follows them | readily, and that amount of knowledge which makes a | comfortable cushion for their own. And a mature siren | who knows what she is about would never do more than | this, even if she could. | Though the mature-siren rests her claims to admiration on | more than mere personal charms, and appeals to | something beyond the senses, yet she is personable and | well preserved, and, in a favourable light, looks nearly as | young as ever. So the men say who knew her when she | was twenty; who loved her then, and have gone on loving | her, with a difference, despite the twenty years which lie | between this and then. Girls, indeed, despise her charms | because she is no longer young; and yet she may be even | more beautiful than youth. She knows all the little | niceties of dress, and, without going into the vulgar | trickery of paint and dyes ~~ which would make her | hideous ~~ is up to the best arts of the toilet by which | every point is made to tell and every minor beauty is | given its fullest value. For part of the art and mystery of | sirenhood is an accurate perception of times and | conditions, and a careful avoidance of that suicidal | mistake of which la femme passe | is so often guilty ~~ namely, setting herself in | confessed rivalry | | with the young by trying to look like them, and so losing | the good of what she has retained, and betraying the | ravages of time by the contrast. | The mature siren is wiser than this. She knows exactly | what she has and what she can do; and before all things | avoids whatever seems too youthful for her years; and | this is one reason why she is always beautiful, because | always in harmony. Besides, she has very many good | points, many positive charms still left. Her figure is still | good ~~ not slim and slender certainly, but round and soft, | and with that slower, riper lazier grace which, quite | different from the antelope-like elasticity of youth, is in | its own way as lovely. If her hair has lost its maiden | luxuriance she makes up with crafty arrangements of lace, | which are more picturesque than the fashionable wisp of | hay-like ends tumbling half-way to the waist. She has | still her white and shapely hands with their pink | filbert-like nails; still her pleasant smile and square small | teeth ~~ those one or two new, matching so perfectly with the | old as to be undiscoverable! Her eyes are bright yet, and | if the upper muscles are a little shrunk, the consequent | apparent enlargement of the orbit only makes them more | expressive; her lips are not yet withered; her skin is not | wrinkled. Undeniably, when well-dressed and in a | favourable light, the mature siren is as beautiful in her | own way as the girlish belle; and the world knows it and | acknowledges it. | That mature sirens can be passionately loved, | | even when very mature, history gives us more than one | example; and the first name that naturally occurs to one's | mind is that of the too famous Ninon de l'Enclos. And | Ninon, if a trifle mythical, was yet a fact and an example. | But not going quite to Ninon's age, we often see women | of forty and upwards who are personally charming, and | whom men love with as much warmth and tenderness as | if they were in the heyday of life ~~ women who count | their admirers by dozens, and who end by making a | superb marriage, and having quite an Indian summer of | romance and happiness. The young laugh at this idea of | the Indian summer for a bride of forty-five; but it is true; | for neither romance nor happiness, neither love nor | mental youth, is a matter of years; and after all we are | only as old as we feel, and certainly no older than we | look. | All women do not harden by time, nor wither, nor yet | corrupt. Some merely ripen and mellow and get enriched | by the passage of the years, retaining the most delicate | womanliness ~~ we had almost said girlishness ~~ into | quite old age, blushing as swiftly under their grey hairs, | while shrinking from anything coarse or vulgar or impure | as sensitively, as when they were girls. is the French term for the | opening of the great gulf beyond which love cannot pass; | but human history disproves this date, and shows that the | heart can remain fresh and the person lovely long after | the age fixed for the final adieu to admiration ~~ that the | mature siren can be adored | | by her own contemporaries when the rising generation | regard her as nothing better than a chimney-corner fixture. | Mr. Trollope recognized the claims of the mature siren in | his Orley Farm and | Miss Mackenzie; and | no-one can | deny the intense naturalness of the characters and the | interest of the stories. | Another point which tells with the mature woman is, that | she is not jealous nor exacting. She knows the world, and | takes what comes with that philosophy which springs | from knowledge. If she be of an enjoying nature ~~ and | she cannot be a siren else ~~ she accepts such good as | floats to the top, neither looking too deep into the cup nor | speculating on the time when she shall have drained it to | the dregs. Men feel safe with her. If they have entered | on a tender friendship with her, they know that there will | be no scene, no tears, no upbraidings, when an inexorable | fate comes in to end their pleasant little drama, with the | inevitable wife as the scene-shifter. The mature siren | knows so well that fate and the wife must break in | between her and her friend, that she is resigned from the | first to what is foredoomed, and thus accepts her bitter | portion, when it comes, with dignity and in silence. | Where younger women would fall into hysterics and | make a scene, perhaps go about the world taking their | revenge in slander, the middle-aged woman holds out a | friendly hand and takes the back seat gallantly, never | showing by word nor look that she has felt her deposition. | She becomes the best friend of the new household; and if | anyone is | | jealous, ten to one it is the husband who is jealous of her | love for his wife. Of course it may be the wife herself, | who cannot see what her husband can find to admire so | much in Mrs. A., and who pouts at his extraordinary | predilection for her, though of course she would scorn to | be jealous ~~ as, indeed, she has no cause. For even a | mature siren, however delightful she maybe, is not likely | to come before a young wife in the heart of a young | husband. Though the French paint the love of a woman | of forty as pathetic, because slightly ridiculous and | certainly hopeless, yet they arrange their theory of social | life so that a youth is generally supposed to make his first | love of a married woman many years his elder, while a | mature siren finds her last love in a youth. | We have not come to this yet in England, either in theory | or practice; and it is to be hoped that we never shall come | to it. Mature sirens are all very well for men of their own | age, and it is pleasant to see them still loved and admired, | and to recognize in them the claims of women to | something higher than mere personal passion; but the | case would be very different if they became ghoulish | seducers of the young, and kept up the habit of love by | entangling boyish hearts and blighting youthful lives. As | they are now, they form a charming element in society, | and are of infinite use to the world. They are the ripe | fruit in the garden where else everything would be green | and immature ~~ the last day of the golden summer set | against the disappointing backwardness | | of spring and before the chills of autumn have come. | They contain in themselves the advantages of two distinct | epochs, and while possessing as much personal charm as | youth, possess also the gains which come by experience | and maturity. They keep things together as the young | could not do; and no gathering of friends is perfect which | has not one or two mature sirens to give the tone, and | prevent excesses. They soften the asperities of | high-handed boys and girls, which else would be too biting; | and they set people at ease, and make them in good | humour with themselves, by the courtesy with which they | listen to them and the patience with which they bear with | them. Even the very girls who hate them fiercely as | rivals love them passing well as half maternal, | half-sisterly, companions; and the first person to whom they | would carry their sorrows would be a mature siren, quite | capable for her own part of having caused them. | It would be hard indeed if the loss of youth did not bring | with it some compensations; but the mature siren suffers | less from that loss than any other kind of woman. Indeed, | she seems to have a private elixir of her own which is not | quite drained dry when she dies, beloved and regretted, at | threescore years and ten; leaving behind her one or two | old friends who were once her ardent lovers, and who still | cherish her memory as that of the finest and most | fascinating woman they ever knew ~~ something which | the present generation is utterly incapable of repeating.