The Reflections of a Frivolous Grandmother

THE CONTRIBUTORS’ CLUB

April 24. — To-day is my birthday. No — I will not tell. I will say with Mme. de Sévigné, ‘Is it a thousand years since I was born? ‘ I confess that, since forty arrived at my door, I refuse to tell my age. ‘I am very old. I am forty,’ said Mr. Buckle, on the occasion of that birthday. Times have changed since that mournful cry; but most of us are still dragged reluctant to our birthdays after forty. And anyway, what is the use of looking forty, and pleading guilty to sixty-five? With Don Quixote, ‘I would fain cherish my dreams.’ Old age is always the vanishing point. Like Sidney Smith’s Shepherd Boy, I fail to take in the fact that I shall ever be old. My sympathies are all with George Eliot, who thought ‘old age the least interesting of human phenomena.’

Only sentimental poets have given old age its halo. I confess that I cannot bear ‘the nodding, nid-nodding time.’ One crowded hour of glorious youth is worth a hundred years of Age’s Cathay. Willingly I would search over the world for Hawthorne’s lost Fountain of Youth if, like his three old gentlemen and the old lady, I could be young again for one half-hour. Not with the youth the scientists promise, with their transplanted monkey-glands, and snake serums — out upon such galvanic, frog-jumping youth! No, in some ‘jeweled cave of joy,’ fed from hidden springs of hope, I will look for Hawthorne’s Fountain. From its golden rim, I will draw waters charged with youth, and fill again my empty urn with their sparkling draught.

I am putting a good face on it, you see, whistling to keep my courage up as the shadows lengthen, snatching at every gracious flower within my reach before real old age comes on, old age with its extinguished passion, its languid curiosity, when the last tame scenes of the play are on the boards.

To-day I bought a spring hat. It is a thing ‘for to admire and for to see’— though I am not quite so mad about it as to leave a dying request to have it buried with me in my coffin, as did a poor soul I read about in the paper. That seems to me the deepest pathos. It might have been her first real hat, and not a ‘hand-me-down.’ My hat is properly black; but it has an adorable facing of blue straw under the cottage brim, and flat roses of a silky, iridescent blue on top. Jane, who was with me, advised one with black ribbon and black grapes. But we elders know what we want. We are like the birds, intuitive, and should be let to find our own way.

‘What a rum thing Time is, ain’t it?’ says the astute Mr. Roker. Time, that strange, inexplicable, flowing river, always the same river but the water never the same. You are the same identity who in the 1850’s raced like the wind across the meadow of your uncle’s farm, stooping to pluck the great purple violets hiding in the long grass, and the pink spikes of Ladies’ Delight. The same who, with perspiration running down her nose, struggled breathless through strangling vines of wild grape, up the bluff-side. I can smell it yet — the fragrance of those wild-grape thickets. If there is anything more intoxicating than the wild grape in bloom, I have not met with it. The Volstead law ought to be amended to include that heavenly odor.

Yesterday an officious street-car conductor amiably offered to assist me down the steps. I was annoyed. I confess too that envy and wild regret rise in my heart, when I see a young woman come in to dinner in a gown whose black, dusky softness lies unrelieved against the whiteness of a neck that is unafraid, and unrivaled by the string of pearls that caress it. Alas, I must veil with lace or tulle the once ivory column, and bolster up the sagging tissues with a black velvet band.

September 2. — To-day I visited a beauty parlor. I had never been in one before. Well — if you must know — just over each ear my hair is really gray, and I thought perhaps — Well, I did n’t.

Old ladies are pretty — a great many of us; but not with the beauty of the beauty parlors. Often you will see the delicate color flushing an old cheek as soft as rose petals; but it is not vinaigre de rouge. Yes, there are pretty old ladies. I mind me of one now, in a lavender gown, with a bunch of Marie Louise violets (she did not call them a corsage) on her breast, and the violets were not lovelier than she. Yes, the eternal feminine is still strong at seventy, and we shall forget the charm of exquisite, dainty apparel when ‘that Ægean isle forgets the sea.’ Years ago, when the fashion of wearing white shoes first came in, my soul longed greatly for a pair; but I feared they were too youthful for me. One day, looking out of the window, I saw a white-haired old lady, many years my senior, tripping by in a white suit and white shoes. You may be sure grass did not grow under my feet, till they were shod in white shoes.

My back porch overlooks the ‘garden enclosed’ of a neighbor grandmother; and almost any morning from May to November, you may see her at work there. ‘The pleasures of the garden,’ says Cicero, ‘ are not hindered by any extent of old age.’ So Cicero consoled his advancing years, and so my neighbor. She digs her troubles into the black, friendly earth; and they come up rose-red hibiscus, great spicy peonies, in a midsummer flower parade. A gay bevy of hollyhocks flaunt their rose, lemon-color, and wine hats, like bridesmaids going up a wedding aisle; while an irregular line of larkspur lifts high its blue, blue spikes. A rambler rose hangs its intriguing clusters over a white trellis and calls, ‘Look at me!’ Zinnias spread their tawny orange and russet pink, like the brown and red of a Venice sail; while proud and haughty dahlias lift their regal heads to carry all before them.

Is it not enough to be alive, even at seventy, to bring such a miracle to pass? Alas! must I confess it — I simply turn tail and run when I turn up cutworms and snails.

My cousin Sue often says to me, ‘Why don’t you get a cat, Anthea? Lots of company for you.’ Sue had her big Persian cat, Peter, in her lap. If I had a Persian cat, — which thank goodness I have n’t, — his name would be Ahasuerus or something, certainly not Peter. I confess to a cold heart for cats; though almost I was persuaded to one, after reading The Fireside Sphinx — that tender and beautiful tribute of Agnes Repplier’s to Agrippina. But the spell of it was broken, when I went to look at a house for rent, where had dwelt a woman with eight cats. Even the ‘jewel eyes’ of Agrippina could not overcome that sight. No, I am as cold as the cat; and selfishly prefer my easy chair for my own occupancy.

I refuse to submit to your subtle but treacherous charm.

I am all the time getting appealing letters from the Republican Woman’s Club; so to-day I went to one of their luncheons. They are getting lined up for the fall campaign, and I very nearly got roped in to serving on a committee. There is an impressive array of elderly women, prominent in public life; and I have no quarrel with this diversion for those who like it or are fitted for it. But when it comes to running for Street Commissioner or the Park Board, I prefer literally to ‘let George do it.’ I confess to another reason. Politics are bad for wrinkles, and I don’t want any more. Over a hundred years ago, Addison remarked in the Spectator: ‘There is nothing so bad for the face as party zeal. Indeed, I have never known a pretty woman in politics, who kept her beauty for a twelvemonth.’ I confess this made a great impression on me. I wonder if Lady Astor or Miss Paul ever read The Spectator.

February 20. — It feels like spring to-day. A wonderful thing has happened. An old flame, of my girl days, came to see me. We had not met for fifty years — since he went away to college. He had fine eyes, and they are fine still. He kissed me when he went away — very softly. He certainly has perfect manners. — I wonder — Pshaw! What would Jane say! No, no! I am all with Sophocles, who, on being asked in extreme old age it he were still a lover, exclaimed, ‘Heaven forbid! I am only too happy to escape from that!’ Yes, truly it is good to be done with it all, — free from the fever and the fret, — and yet, and yet — I would I were not come to that peaceful time ‘whose calmer kisses wake nor smile nor tear.’ But who can live life over? I must be content with the andante movement, and leave to youth the allegro vivace. At least we have our memories — lovely, if pale, asphodels of the heart.

And at least we can have friends — The daily bread of the heart,’ as someone has fondly called a friend.

And so I will not shiver at the black footprints of Age across my frosted land. Rather, I will emulate old Dr. Johnson, who, when roused at night by the revelry of roysterers under his window, put his head out, and calling, ‘Boys, are you there? ‘ went down and joined them. A fine gaité du cœur is the true philosophy. Let me present a smiling, if wrinkled, front to Old Age.

Last winter, in California, I was so carried away with the Book-Caravan idea, — then new to me, — that I came perilously near buying a ravishing white milk-wagon, which daily stopped at our door, and replacing its equipment of cans with a stock of books selected under the personal supervision of Mr. A. Edward Newton. The climate was favorable to this enterprise, and it failed only because an eighteen-year-old granddaughter, an expert motorist, refused to accompany me as chauffeur, on the ground that ‘people would look at us!’

No! all is not lost while there are books. In my wooden house of Age, still shines a golden room of books. ‘Let ‘s think on our marcies, Chloe,’ said poor old Uncle Tom in a time of sore trial. So I would fain think on mine, and remember my books, when I am at the tag end of everything, looking back, back, as I ride the galloping horse of Time, to the Land of Old Age. No — with my books I can yet warm my hands at the fires of life, even though they leap no more in the wind of Youth. Still can I see Queen Guinevere riding in the pleasant month of May, ‘clothed all in green, as she rode Maying through the wood in great joy and delight.’ Still can I travel back the Long Trail, to the scenes of my youth; and perhaps find, at the foot of the rainbow of dreams and memories, my pot of gold.