It is not that the charm of the women of whom we speak is mainly this physical beauty; that is only incidental, as it were.  The delight in their society has a variety of sources.  Their interest in life is broader than it once was, more sympathetically unselfish; they have a certain philosophical serenity that is not inconsistent with great liveliness of mind; they have got rid of so much nonsense; they can afford to be truthful—­and how much there is to be learned from a woman who is truthful! they have a most delicious courage of opinion, about men, say, and in politics, and social topics, and creeds even.  They have very little any longer to conceal; that is, in regard to things that should be thought about and talked about at all.  They are not afraid to be gay, and to have enthusiasms.  At sixty and eighty a refined and well-bred woman is emancipated in the best way, and in the enjoyment of the full play of the richest qualities of her womanhood.  She is as far from prudery as from the least note of vulgarity.  Passion, perhaps, is replaced by a great capacity for friendliness, and she was never more a real woman than in these mellow and reflective days.  And how interesting she is—­adding so much knowledge of life to the complex interest that inheres in her sex!  Knowledge of life, yes, and of affairs; for it must be said of these ladies we have in mind that they keep up with the current thought, that they are readers of books, even of newspapers—­for even the newspaper can be helpful and not harmful in the alembic of their minds.

Let not the purpose of this paper be misunderstood.  It is not to urge young women to become old or to act like old women.  The independence and frankness of age might not be becoming to them.  They must stumble along as best they can, alternately attracting and repelling, until by right of years they join that serene company which is altogether beautiful.  There is a natural unfolding and maturing to the beauty of old age.  The mission of woman, about which we are pretty weary of hearing, is not accomplished by any means in her years of vernal bloom and loveliness; she has equal power to bless and sweeten life in the autumn of her pilgrimage.  But here is an apologue:  The peach, from blossom to maturity, is the most attractive of fruits.  Yet the demands of the market, competition, and fashion often cause it to be plucked and shipped while green.  It never matures, though it may take a deceptive richness of color; it decays without ripening.  And the last end of that peach is worse than the first.

THE ATTRACTION OF THE REPULSIVE