because they do not use the elixir which would keep them always young.
Under its influence, a gem brightens yearly which is only seen to more
advantage through the fissures Time makes in the casket. [Footnote:
Appendix F.] No one thinks of Michael Angelo's Persican Sibyl, or St.
Theresa, or Tasso's Leonora, or the Greek Electra, as an old maid,
more than of Michael Angelo or Canova as old bachelors, though all had
reached the period in life's course appointed to take that degree.

See a common woman at forty; scarcely has she the remains of beauty,
of any soft poetic grace which gave her attraction as Woman, which
kindled the hearts of those who looked on her to sparkling thoughts,
or diffused round her a roseate air of gentle love. See her, who was,
indeed, a lovely girl, in the coarse, full-blown dahlia flower of what
is commonly matron-beauty, "fat, fair, and forty," showily dressed,
and with manners as broad and full as her frill or satin cloak. People
observe, "How well she is preserved!" "She is a fine woman still,"
they say. This woman, whether as a duchess in diamonds, or one of our
city dames in mosaics, charms the poet's heart no more, and would look
much out of place kneeling before the Madonna. She "does well the
honors of her house,"--"leads society,"--is, in short, always spoken
and thought of upholstery-wise.

Or see that care-worn face, from which every soft line is
blotted,--those faded eyes, from which lonely tears have driven the
flashes of fancy, the mild white beam of a tender enthusiasm. This
woman is not so ornamental to a tea-party; yet she would please
better, in picture. Yet surely she, no more than the other, looks as a
human being should at the end of forty years. Forty years! have they
bound those brows with no garland? shed in the lamp no drop of
ambrosial oil?