I will not ask you, my dear ones, to look again at that pitiable picture of Vanity battling with Age, despite the certainty of defeat and disappointment. But be assured of this—that the girl who starts on the same lines will reach the same goal; but it will not be that of a beautiful and lovable old age.
Do not imagine that I undervalue externals. I would have you all be habitually careful about them. Let your complexion be kept at its best by scrupulous cleanliness. If your hair is beautiful and abundant, take pains to dress it in the fashion that best sets off such good looks as you possess. If you are less favoured in this respect, give the more care and pains so as to make the best of what you have.
Exercise good taste in your dress, whilst carefully keeping your expenditure within your means. The girl who dresses quietly and becomingly will not make herself conspicuous in later years by the use of glaring colours or fantastic garments.
Try to be graceful and quiet in your movements, and scrupulous in avoiding all little ways and habits likely to be disturbing, unpleasant, or offensive to others. And do not be offended if a well-meaning friend ventures to point out a tendency to any growing habit of the kind, knowing that if once established it will be almost impossible for you to overcome it. Bear in mind that such a warning can be only intended for your benefit and to help you on your way towards growing old gracefully.
Study to modulate your voices so that the sound of them may fall pleasantly, even musically, on the ear. Shrill, harsh, and loud youthful voices become something too terrible when they accompany age.
I wonder if any of you have heard our dear Queen speak? I regret to say that I have not, but friends have told me that they never heard a voice which equalled hers for its melodious tone, perfect clearness, and faultless enunciation.
Try to avoid affectation in gesture and movement, and any form of facial contortion. Habit makes all these painful to witness, and age exaggerates them. Sometimes a habit of knitting the brows is contracted early in life, with the result that the forehead is furrowed and a forbidding expression given to the face which permanently spoils it. Age intensifies what is forbidding and disagreeable, but shows to the greatest advantage all that is most lastingly attractive in us, just as the flower fulfils the promise of the bud.
In this lesson on "How to grow old" I have confined myself to externals. It is time for us to part, but when we meet again we will study the subject from the highest standpoint.
Before then a new year will have dawned on us. Let me suggest as a fitting motto for it, "I will go in the strength of the Lord God." May it prove a very happy one to you all.
(To be continued.)