British novelist, journalist, and essayist George Slythe Street (1867-1936) is best known for his satirical novel The Autobiography of a Boy (1894), in which the main character, Tubby, is based on the Irish playwright Oscar Wilde.
"The Persistence of Youth" originally appeared in The Cornhill Magazine (1901) and was reprinted two years later in A Book of Essays. Here, Street examines the phenomenon of the extended adolescence of the British male: "At the present time he is a boy up to about thirty-five, a young man up to fifty, and he is hardly regarded as old until he has exceeded David's maximum of life by six or seven years."
The Persistence of Youth
by George S. Street
In all ages and in all languages the praises of youth have been joyously or pathetically sounded. From time immemorial men have been exhorted to make the most of their youth, remembering that it would quickly pass away, and the catalogue of the ills which old age brings with it has been drawn out with dismal iteration. In a sort of half-hearted way men learned the lesson. They enjoyed themselves as much as possible when they were young, and when they were old made things as unpleasant as they could for their juniors, to revenge their own shortcomings in the joy of youth, and spent the rest of their time grumbling to one another. But it has been reserved for our practical age and for us practical Anglo-Saxons to learn the lesson in its fulness, and to draw the proper conclusion. We have determined to remain young until we die, and already the success we have achieved is remarkable. We made up our minds twenty years ago at most, and already the percentage of young men who have defied all the prosaic limitations of their ancestors is amazing. By young men I mean, of course, men who are visibly and characteristically young, who by the mere tale of years may be anything up to sixty. For some time I have diligently read the lists of new books, and looked through tables of contents in the sterner reviews, in the hope that some philosopher might be found explaining the extraordinary duration of youth in the present day. I have been disappointed in my search, and am driven to make a few poor suggestions of my own, somewhat as a man wishing to study law takes a pupil instead of a tutor: by dint of writing about the matter I may haply light upon some cause or causes other than the determination which I have mentioned and which is not sufficient in itself, since in other ages men have tried to remain young and have somehow or other failed.
But let us first review the facts. I propose to confine myself to men, because in regard to women the change has been already noted and much exaggerated, and in their case it is confused with literary and other conventions and fashions. Moreover, that branch of the subject has the danger that one's philosophical intention might be confused with a spirit of uncouth and vulgar sarcasm, which is far from one. We will keep to men. Now, in the early part of last century a man was a man at twenty or so, a middle-aged man at thirty, and old at fifty. At the present time he is a boy up to about thirty-five, a young man up to fifty, and he is hardly regarded as old until he has exceeded David's maximum of life by six or seven years.
For the first half of my statement I refer my readers to the literature of the period passim.
"Ladies even of the most uneasy virtuesays Byron. Is anybody now regarded as a confirmed bachelor on account of his age? Not, I am certain, under seventy. But one might quote for ever. Even in the middle of the century Thackeray made elaborate fun of his Paul de Florac for posing as a young man at forty. I am acquainted with a young fellow whose friends and relations are making serious efforts to wean him from dissipation and bad companions and settle him in some regular business, and he is fifty-four.
Prefer a spouse whose age is short of thirty,"
As to the second part of the statement, my readers can supply their own instances by the thousand from their observation, the newspapers, and the conversation of their friends--instances of a youthful persistence which would have amazed our grandfathers. In the year 1900, when the Ministry was being re-formed, the newspapers were all commenting on the extraordinary youthfulness of Mr. Wyndham and Lord Selborne. It was thought really audacious of Lord Salisbury to give high office to these lads. They are both about forty, and Pitt and Fox were in the blaze of their reputation and influence fifteen years earlier in their lives. It is, of course, a commonplace that we are served by older politicians than was the case in past times, but the interesting thing is that the comments on Lord Selborne and Mr. Wyndham referred to their absolute, not their comparative youth, rejoiced in the vigour and capacity for receiving new ideas which their youth implied, and were inclined to be nervous about the want of caution to which it might expose them. The same thing happened in Lord Randolph Churchill's case. I well remember hearing, when he resigned the Chancellorship of the Exchequer, people complain of his boyish petulance. I well remember it, because I was in my teens myself, and was rather disturbed by the length of time which had to elapse before I should be grown up. Lord Randolph was about forty at that time.
These instances, however, though they are properly germane to the subject, may be suspect because of the convention of politics, as of the bar, which speaks of men as young when all that is meant is that they are comparatively young at their trade. Let us take, therefore, a calling which notoriously can be and is pursued by anybody over seventeen. There is a "dramatic critic" who is about forty-five years old and has been a dramatic critic for about twenty years, I believe. Until a very few years ago he was always referred to as a "young gentleman." That reminds me of Mr. Max Beerbohm (if he will not object to my mentioning it), who is thirty or so, and who is generally described as a "youth." If an author of twenty were to burst upon the world (such things have been), the critics would hardly admit that he was born.
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