So, Nathaniel Hawthorne?

  And the moral of your story is that wanting to be young again is wrong because it would only reinforce the bad behaviors of the past. Or so you had your Dr. Heidigger point out after he conducted his Experiment on four old people after they partook of his elixir from the Fountain of Youth.
   So the three old geezers succumbed to the frailties of their youth, which weaknesses were ill-advised business dealings, political corruption and an immoral playboy lifestyle.  That may have been their weaknesses and human failure, but the Widow Wycherly only wanted to reclaim the beauty that once drove men wild, including the three miscreants who were suddenly engaged in mortal combat for her attention.
    I read this story, "Dr. Heidigger's Experiment"  when I was in high school, and I distinctly remember feeling sorry for the Widow Wycherly.  I didn't see anything wrong with her passion to want to be young again. Even at sixteen, I knew I would not want my face to be lined with wrinkles any more than did the Widow.  And to have the endless cares, sadness and diseases of age  be remembered only as if in a troubled dream---who wouldn't want that?  So, Heidigger and Hawthorne, the three guys may have resorted to foolish behavior but not the Widow----she only wanted to look good. 
     **Moreover, Mr. Irving,  I have always felt that Rip Van Winkle's wife got a raw literary deal too.  Rip was a lazy slob who only wanted to avoid work and he comes off as the sympathetic character in the story while his poor wife is forever characterized as a termagant just  because she tried to involve her no-good husband into helping her with household duties.
       No wonder the need for these women's rights movements.