Evening Republican, Volume 15, Number 228, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 September 1911 — WOMAN LOVELIEST AT FORTY [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

WOMAN LOVELIEST AT FORTY

ASiCXPIIAINtD

BY CAROLINE OTLRO TO STLRLING HEILIG

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i/ / OMAN Is loveliest it WW forty!** MMnpv The speaker herself t seemed never lovelier / ttoain when admitting 11/ forty-one years past For )WrWf\ twenty years Paris has fW T \ called her The Bemutlf 1 fnl Otero; and she Is \ J still at the height of forV J tune as the most famous Vw/ Spanish dancer and the most bejeweled proses-

sional beauty at the gay French capltaL She explained herself: "I refer to line women. In health and the enjoyment of rational luxuries, they need only two things to triumph In the sham of their full flowering—will to keep In condition, and mastery of that pathetic disdain which tempts them to stand back In the shadow.” She rose and paced the room with cab like graoe. She snatched a man’s hat from the table, cocked It over her eye. flung the end of a cloak over her shoulder. and struck an attitude. *1 have our value impressed on me ever in the Spanish dance.” she said. “The grand dance of the flamenca! What a dance, monsieur, what a drama! It to tile whole of woman’s life in three

acts: desire, seduction, tragic triumph. Never has dramatic work expressed femininity with the grace, mystery and Intensity of those three scenes. Now, look you. In the south of Spain they say It takes eight years to form a fiamenca. Perfection Is unattainable; because this exhausting dance—twelve minutes!—show me a danseuse of the opera who will accept a variation of twelve minutes—contains three rales that are unconnected: the Ingenue, th% amoureuse. and the tragedienne. One ought to he sixteen years old to dance the first — and forty to dance the end of the drama, In which Ruble, magnificent at fifty, fixed the tradition.'' “Madame." I asked, “la It possible that yon are old enough to dance that third act?" “I am forty-one,** she laughed. *1 had made two trips to the United States before I settled tn Paris tn 1891; and I was just of age when starting out If lam not worn like some great Sameness, it is thanks to the life of Paris Those who remain tn Spain use themselves up, monsieur. It is a magnificent public, but It fatigues the artiste. In Paris, the good people Interest themselves sa much In my jewels and accept what I give them.» So I have been able to live reasonably. Luxury Is good for a worn* an of self-control. Those soft creatures who lie around rad overeat, I have no patience wtth them! I have always had unconscious training from my work, though I owe much to the Turkish bath. . . .“ “The Ham mam?" I asked. “No, so; I have a sweat-box in my apartment fitted with fifty electric-light bulbs. 1 often take It four times e week when not davfiag, followed with a tepid douche, turning raid. There to an apparatus to frighten young beauties, monsieur!" r { Certainly a remarkable woman. On the "pfege, from Copenhagen to Vienna, from London to Rome, she is known, always and above all, as a beauty. Bhe sings after a fashion. She has made successful ventures Into pantomhne. And now, at forty, toe has made her •elf an victress of merit, appearing in emotional raise on the great Paris Mage. Now, also, at forty; she continues to pose for the beet sellfeg heraty photographs on the European market After her comes Una CavaUert, with no third in their Other beauties sell as well In certain successful poses; hut Otero "WomraTf “What pathetic disdain, what proud anticipation, what unhappy acquiescence hastening out to meet fate more than half-way. cause so many to tg Bore their splendor and even wander into self- ■

doubt! Loveliness Is a living thing made of beauty, charm, grace —physical at-

tractions, yes—and also the maniere de s'en servir! The way to use them! Here Is the triumph of the woman of forty—when she gladly lets herself loose!** “Why not?** I murmured, fascinated by one who certainly lets herself loose. She continued gully: “Why, the Intuitions of the very young man are unerring In this matter. The youth of seventeen, with senses painfully fresh and keen, begins wtth s grande passion for the woman of forty. Instinct tells him that she Is the loveliest The thing Is traditional, from Harry Esmond down to Porter Charlton. And Joseph even; hHw did she get that coat? We laugh. Laughter to a audden glory—over human mischance. The youth himself refuses to arrive at charming forty beside a woman of sixtythree; yet his first untroubled Judgment was to award the apple where it belongs." “The man of forty evidently. . .** I began. “The worst enemy of the woman of forty Is the man of forty," persisted Otero. “She is the mirror In which he dreads to see the shadow of his own degeneracy—forgetting that his wear and tear of ten years past have not been hers. So the man of forty marries the girl of twenty-three. In spite of his wear and tear, she finds in the charm of the full man her profound satisfaction —without looking ahead. Why look ahead? In Paris we see dally men of forty making inexperienced young fellows appear foolish. For example. I will cite the best loved-man of Paris,* over whose elegant person five hat-pin duels have been fought in the past three years—the latest on the Btarrlts boardwalk. between a young matron rad a bnd of society He will be forty-two years old next February.” ; Otero did not cite hts name, so I will Imitate her wise discretion. “The men of forty to vein sad suspicious," said Otero. “Even when in full possession of Us physical and mental perfections, he most punish unoffending loveliness that walks beside him In the path of years. Oh. yes, he makes the woman of forty suffer I The fair creature would be more than human not to resent It. Unspoken malice in her laughing eye causes the fatuous fellow to grit his teeth with lute. And so two perfect creatures, at the flood of all that to best In them, too often turn their hecks upon each other. leaving opportunity open to lees prejudiced hearts and heads —to girls with their Intuitions, and to men of fifty purged of petty vanity!" * Even so, women or forty role Paris. Madame Otero collects portrait photographs Scatterlag a package of foremost Parts beauties on

I know ot nothing bo eloquent of her superior loveliness." "Let her arrive unknown in a community and confess thirtyone years. The other women will give her thirty-six on principle. And all the men, suspicious of their women's frankness in l such matters, will be sure that she is a delicious creature of possibly thirty-four, grand maximum, of unusual tact, poise, suppleness, quo!? all kinds of graces of unknown but obviously superior surroundings!” “We see it every day," I- said. “Fine women have the age they look." "No, ,no, the woman of forty is positively loveliest,” replied the lovely specialist “We must distinguish. Physical loveliness is one thing, academical perfection of form another. Paris painters of voluptuous subjects—nymphs rolling green lawns, bacchantes sprawling in pagan festivals, courts of Neptune sunning on golden sands—have always been reproached by their un. compromising brethren for ‘doing chic’ because they wilfully age their models. To attain the acme of sensual beauty, they enlarge rotundities, exaggerate curves, tend toward the corset waist—bete noire of purists and delight of gods and men —and arrive at an unearthly charm by giving the nymph of eighteen a whole set of outlines that she ought not have for fifteen years. What is this but glorifying by ‘chic* the beauty of forty—whom these painters seldom obtain as model, because &ere is always some man to prevent it!” “Also,” 1 said, “they must pretend fiielr nymphs are eighteen—for the man of forty.” "Betises!” laughed Otero, “in times past overweening plumpness may have been a danger to the lasy and self-indulgent—-even at eighteen; but the modern line woman changes little between thirty-five and forty-five. As for academical purity of line, none but uncompromising painters and sculptors want it — to give purity of sentiment; and it is lost, not at forty, but at twenty-four. The episode of Eberleln is classical. Struck by the pure beauty of a twenty-five-year-old model, the famous

om table, she called off their ages for me. I was surprised. “Who thinks of their ages?” she said. “Some were not so beautiful when younger. Look at this one . . . and this . . . Here is a lady with an almost insignificant nose; and her eyes were never much until she had them tattooed where actresses pencil. Here is one with not a perfect feature, yet her physique and temperament are delightful. And this other, without the noble spirit breathing through her look, would toe not be almost plain?” * ‘ *■ She said true; yet I had passed all as charming. All have beauty reputation. When a woman like thlß gives away her sisters it Is edifying. Otero showed ms how one splendid creature fought for years against a double chin rad conquered; how another began bony; how another has learned to dissimulate a trumpet nose. Stop!" I exclaimed. “You will make me think that all young women are full of defects!” “They are,” said Otero. “What is time for but to correct them? Scatter the photographs rad look again. You will find them beauties now in any case! They are radiant They have learned their power!" It was even so. There were flashes of ecstasy, gleams of delight eyes that spoke soul awakenings. Ups parted to mystery. There were coy faces, faces that asked baffling questions, confidential faces, high, courageous faces, faces that breathed sweet sad reverie. “AU kinds of faces, except wooden twenty-year-old faces, hein?*’ laughed the subtle Spaniard. “A Paris photographer has given me a partial reason why their faces are lovelier at forty. It Is because they have been photographed so much." ‘The effort to resemble one’s best picture?" I mused. \ » ' ' “AU that, in general; bat he claims a particular Influence of self-suggestion. We come to resemble our best photographs by gentle de gross, unconsciously, when they follow each other Ih a long, changing series." “Living up to tost week's photograph makes next week's photograph still handsomer," I said. “A hundred photographs completes the euro." - , “He was a photographer, of oourse, ami gave the entire credit to his art," replied Otero. "Perhaps the secret to encouragement. How often w© have sera plain praam bloom rat. We women guess the secret cause —the transfigured one to happy tn leva. She has been encouraged." “Oh. weU then." I said, “any way to encourage oneself! ..ff “That’s R! Beauty to a habit!" exclaimed Otero. Tt to the habit of those who have started encouraged! Let the woman of forty merely conceal her age, rad the trick la half won.

sculptor noted down minutely, numerously, all her exact measurements In order to reproduce such a perfect anatomy In marble. Four weeks later, in verifying the measurements before ah incredulous confrere, he was astonished to discover that not a single one concorded: the academically perfect anatomy had budged all along the line —toward the voluptuous beauty prized by common mortals! ” “And the maniere de s’ en servirl” I mused. “I accuse not only the young girl's green acidity, her forming body, sleeping temperament, and crudity of mind,’’ summed up Otero. “In northern lands, the sleeping parts may get the sand out of their eyes by twenty-five; but, even then, years pass In looking round and wondering what this world may mean. So, at thirty, the average young woman, loaded down with natural arrogance and Ideas that have been Imposed upon her, tranqullizes a growing disquiet by repeating to herself: *1 am a young thing!’ Op to thirty-five the satisfaction of ruling may have been her chief profit Now she wakes completely to the pulsing life of things, knows herself and—dismayed by sense of loss—plunges avidly, or else —" “ —Or else, discouraged, sinks back, murmuring: ‘I am an old thing!’” I finished the sentence for her. "That’s it,* laughed Otero. “If she grows panic-stricken, she enters the 'terrible quarantalne’ Indeed. They may be the terrible forties’ or tjpe ‘splendid forties,* as she makes them, as her world permits her. or as she dominates It with happy Insouciance brushing aside every obstacle and flinging herself into the harmonies of an Instrument finally at* tuned. Then she Is truly terrible—terrible to younger, undecided women whom she mocks and bamboozles, borrowing their admirers from /them out of pure lightheartedness; terrible to men, on whom she avenges the neglect of years to come!” ■ Treasure From the Bea. Boys that live at Pine Brook, N. J„ did not know that there was a buried treasure near at hand or they ' might have, gone hunting for It Two fishermen found ft A strong tine, much larger then you have ever used unless you have gone fishing for whale or something of that sort was caught in the bottom of the river. “The men tugged on,lt and round that it gave a little, and Just then an automobile came along the road. The men asked the automobile to give them a little assistance, and they tied the line to the rear axle and let the car pull on it. The Una strained and slowly moved out of the water, drawing with it a wrecked caaoe full of mud and stones. In the canoe was found a heavy chest, which was removed by the men and loaded Into thp car, and than the driver and fishermen went on to town. There they displayed the find, and the chest was recog nlsed as the silverware boat belonging to a hotel. The ho* had bean stolen In 1904. and no trace of the robbers had been round