WHEN DOES OLD AGE BEGIN? pro THE EDITOR OP TIIII
"SPROTATORM SIE,—The interesting and humorous article in your last number on this subject seems to me to contain one grave mistake when it speaks of the ' service of the looking-glass when we wish to inform ourselves whether old age is beginning. How can we expect a looking-glass to reflect the truth when we so constantly see that it has had no such effect on others? The pathetic 'illusions of stout men and women about their figures remain a sttipefying fact. Yet presumably they have glasses and look at themselves in them. No. Mirrort 'only have the courage of their opinions,—they only dare to be truthful if there are twenty or thirty of them together. Let any one who cares to prove the truth of this assertion, and to know what he or she looks like, repair to a certain vanity-deetraying little show at Earl's Court—I do not know whether it is Still in existence—where for the sum of sixpence —I would willingly give a sovereign to forget it—you enter what appears to he a vast hall thronged with people. I went once with an Eton nephew, and after a few bewildered niiiments made the abominable discovery that the swarms of
repulsive-looking females- - . "Long and lean, •
Like a French bean "— by whom we were surrounded were one and all myself. That appalling moment I have never forgotten. My nephew, on the contrary, looked exactly the same as usual, with his retinue of duplicates. He as not even changed when viewed upside down. But his unfortunate aunt ! I contracted a severe chill on the spot, and have dressed in half-mourning [Did not Sydney Smith say that the reason why he liked to visit:a-certain many-mirrored restaurant in Paris was that it made him- feel as if he . were at a clerical meeting P—En. Spietator.] •
Previous page
