Dorothy L. Sayers on Aging

 

Dorothy L Sayers by Sir William Hutchison, 1957, (detail) 

Credit: National Portrait Gallery London

"As I grow older and older, 

And totter toward the tomb, 

I find that I care less and less, 

Who goes to bed with whom." - D. Sayers

Dorothy Sayers was 37 years old when her book Strong Poison was published in 1930. At that point, she was at the halfway mark of her life. She died at age 64. In Strong Poison she describes what it felt like to be growing older. She wrote this:

From now on, every hour of light-heartedness would be, not a prerogative but an achievement - one more axe or case - bottle or fowling-piece, rescued, Crusoe-fashion, from a sinking ship. (Chapter VIII)

Related reading: Murder by Arsenic: Reflection on Sayers' novel Strong Poison; Dorothy Sayer's Obituary; The Descriptive Writing of Dorothy Sayers; Dorothy Sayers' Wisdom; Last Morning in Oxford; D, Sayers: A Mind of Her Own; The Lost Tools of Learning by Dorothy Sayers; The Final Redemption of Cats