THE AGE OF BEAUTY

Shannon News, 4 January 1928, Page 4

THE AGE OF BEAUTY

The refusal of this generation to grow old has been the subject of much discussion by moralists and men of science. The professions are crowded with sprightly youths of three U nd ten. The age of a woman

riuj iiecomc impossible to guess, and indeed a matter of mere statistical interest. Grandmothers dazzle us with the shape and the complexion of ingenues, and if by compensation, the ingenue knows as much as her grandmother, no doubt that also is evidence of the progress of humanity. Once upon a time our elders used to sigh, "Si la jeunesse sava.it, si la vi'eilesse pouvait!" Now there is nothing which youth does not know, and hardly anything which age does not think it can do. But, as usual, they have gone further than this in America (says the 'London Daily Tele-' graph'). Their last exponent of the theory and practice of being beautiful , is a Venus of 103. Madame Char-. lotto Dav.-nport came to the ■ United States from Kussia 50 years ago. Ever since, or for the greater part of the time, for she began by rearing her 11 children she has been lecturing on the pursuit of beauty. Yet we are-

assured, she remains a shining example of her precepts, and might be taken for a woman several score years younger." A certain vagueness as to how many score may be in such a case permitted to the dazzled eyes of the reporter. ' We ave to confess that this seems to be likely .to be another American record. We hardly know which to admiro the more, the endurance of Madame Davenport or America's appetite for lectures. Where shall we find her rival? Poets have dreamed that Helen/ of Troy was ever young and very beautiful, Rider Haggard's heroine enchanted generation after generalion. But that was art magic. The l.doks say that Ninon de l'Enclos was as beautiful a.t 70 as 17, and had at her feet the sons-of those whose, fathers had been her lovers. But Nittori died when she was a mere chit of fiO. We must give the apple to Madame Davenport Happy is America in being taught by such a professor how to keep young and how to grow old beautifully.