It is
even said, that those fair nettles of India took advantage of her
weakness, to dress her head awry, and to apply the rouge to her nose,
instead of her cheeks. So may the superannuated eagle be pecked at by
daws. But the tale is not probable. After all, it is but the captious
inference of witlings and scoffers, that attributes to mere sexual
vanity that superstitious horror of encroaching age, from which the
wisest are not always free. It may be, that they shrink from the
reflection of their wrinkles, not as from the despoilers of beauty, but
as from the vaunt-couriers of dissolution. In rosy youth, while yet the
brow is alabaster-veined with Heaven's own tint, and the dark tresses
turn golden in the sun, the lapse of time is imperceptible as the
throbbing of a heart at ease. "So like, so very like, is day to
day,"--one primrose scarce more like another. Whoever saw their first
grey hairs, or marked the crow-feet at the angle of their eyes, without
a sigh or a tear, a momentous self-abasement, a sudden sinking of the
soul, a thought that youth is flown for ever? None but the blessed few
that, having dedicated their spring of life to Heaven, behold in the
shedding of their vernal blossoms, a promise that the season of immortal
fruit is near.
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