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SKETCHES. 279
present century’s and my own age. I know a lady, who,
when twenty-eight years old, gave herself out to be thirty
— “for,” said she, “what is the use of sticking to those two
years?” Perhaps I also follow a little her footsteps, for,
I think with her: thirty-eight, thirty-nine, forty, why, it
comes to almost the same thing. The wisdom-teeth and
the wrinkles have already come.
Forty years! du not you feel something “set” in those
words? At forty one has generally settled down in life.
This is why one can quietly walk about and contemplate
the world, and—there 7s much to contemplate in this
world. Our century has also settled down, but it has set-
tled down in Parliament and meditates upon the State, and
therefore it looks neither merry nor uneasy, but thoughtful.
So also is woman at forty. The heart does not then any
longer beat uneasily before a ball, or still more uneasily
after one; nor do we then stand here in life as a poor can-
didate for any thing, a prey to wishes, hopes, uncertainties,
contrarieties, happiness, and misery, neither does the frame
of our mind, like ‘a chameleon, take the impression of
every new object, changing from rose-color to black, from
green to gray, in the course of only a few hours; nor do
you see in every one whom you meet some important per-
sonage in the romance of your life, nor in every uttered
nonsense a monster which you are to rush upon and attack,
like Don Quixote battling with the windmill; you need not
then dance when you want to sit still, nor walk according
to the will of others, when you have your own will— ina
word, you are above a great deal of anxiety and trouble.
Many a rosy light has, it is true, perchance waned, but also
many mists have rolled away and brightened. You see your
way clearer, you walk along more steadily; not swayed
hither and thither by the wind, as in youth; not leaning with
faltering steps upon the crutches of old age; you walk
sturdily on your own legs, and look round in the world with-
out coming to fisticuffs with it. Forty years is the age of
contemplation, of practical thought. Long life be to them!
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