The notion that the woman's business is ended at fifty or sixty is fantastic.

It only ends there if she has been blind to the meaning of her own experiences; if she has never gone below the surface of her task--never seen in it anything but physical relations and duties; has sensed none of its intimate relations to the community, none of its obligations toward those who have left her, none of those toward the oncoming generations.

If it ends there, she has failed to realize, too, the tremendous importance to all those who belong in her circle or who touch it _of what she makes of herself_, of her personal achievement.
A woman of fifty or sixty who has succeeded, has come to a point of sound philosophy and serenity which is of the utmost value in the mental and spiritual development of the group to which she belongs.
Life at every one of its seven stages has its peculiar harrowing experiences; hope mingles with uncertainty in youth; fear and struggle characterize early manhood; disillusionment, the question whether it is worth while, fill the years from forty to fifty,--but resolute grappling with each period brings one out almost inevitably into a fine serene certainty which cannot but have its effect on those who are younger.

Ripe old age, cheerful, useful, and understanding, is one of the finest influences in the world.

We hang Rembrandt's or Whistler's picture of his mother on our walls that we may feel its quieting hand, the sense of peace and achievement which the picture carries.