Clarksville Chronicle

Nothing wears like homeliness and plainness. The men in whom we see no change have characteristics that defy the ravages of time, and dash back its tide like so many ragged rocks. Indeed, there is this advantage in ugliness, that it mends with years; inasmuch as it has nothing to spoil, it takes courage. As Lady Charlotte Lindsay, witty and plain, put it,

"My ugliness has lost its bloom."

"Beauty is the true sport of time; it is composed of evanescent qualities; indeed, it is its charm that it passes." We must make the most of the show, for it stays among us but a day.

The most worn and tell-tale faces we call to mind, most suggesting the question or exclamation, how old! are the faces of once handsome women. It is beauties that make wrecks—an epithet never applicable to the harsh or commonplace. If extenuation of the effort to keep young, so severely ridiculed on all hands as the last mark of a vain as a frivolous character, one may remark that it is not every one who can afford to put on old age—to be any older than they can help. Respect to old age does not come naturally to most men; it argues a finer clay than the common.

So long as a man has vigor enough to keep to the fore, his wisdom is to let his work speak for him. Every allusion to age is caught at as a confession of which ungenerous use may be made.