HOW WE LIVE NOW.

Thames Star, Volume VII, Issue 2578, 12 April 1877, Page 3

HOW WE LIVE NOW.

We are such gregarious creatures that we dare not refuse to follow the fashion, at the cost of Heaven knows what misery ■to ourselves; and the fashion just at present is to make money, honestly, if possible, if not—anyhow. It is not worth while now to discuss in the spirit of ancient philosophy whether pleasure is good ; the nineteenth century has decided that pleasure, and pleasure alone, is the goal of life. Not happiness—for of that we do not take much account—but pleasure. Now pleasure, as understood by modern epicureans, requires a great deal of money; for everything, from horses' to opera-boxes, and good dinners to jewellery, costs large sums ; therefore riches are the desideratum of existence. This is especially well understood by women, who, though not much versed in logic, are generally right in the conclusions to which they jump. If we knew all the secrets of speculators, if the thoughts of all hearts could by supernatural magic be for one instant revealed to us, what strange dramas would see the light—dramas more terrible in their bald and bitter truth than the;five-act tragedies, of the Porte St Martin 1 While the sweet of the arts and refinement, and the refreshment of science and literature, are a dead letter to fashionable people,: as long as" noise, ' gossip, and expenditure are the surest mode of attracting notoriety, and its devoted follower adulation, money must, wield the magic wand, and unclose at will the.realms of material delight. Where formerly a ; simple country walk,, a few friends gathered unpretentipusly round the family, tea-table, an occasional visit to . the theatre, or a new book, sufficed for recreation and happiness, the . middleclass menage must have carriage and hOrses, costumes from the most ruinous dressmakers, and "champagne suppers. Where do we find now the courteous manner of the perfect, gentleman, the refined amiability of the "grande dame ? We are never sure, if we.meet a lady in the street to what class she may belong; and as for forms and graces of speech, the middle classes had best un r learn all that the aristocracy can teach. A wife looks on her husband as a moneymaking machine; the contingency that the brain may give way and the machine become worthless, rarely} if ever, arrests her thoughts. City men, of course,; must work r and if they .do not make money, it is as the natural sequence from their own incompetency and fault. With the; spur "of a woman's, approval or reproaches, either equally potent, ever at his back, the man slaves and toils, and somehow it all seems to turn to Dead-Sea fruit. There is none of. the cheerful consciousness •of good work about his "doings; the phantom of money haunts him, and when his intelligence would demand free play .and the elasticity of carelessness, visions of unpaid bills and of hideous possibilities cloud his sight and cripple his faculties.—The World. -■-■■■■ -•■.'■-■...