HOW WE LIVE NOW.

Waikato Times, Volume X, Issue 751, 24 April 1877, Page 3

HOW WE LIVE NOW.

"We are such gregarious, creature? that we daw fiftt refuse to. follow the at the ©oat 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 ifl the spirit of ancient whether pleasure is good ; the nineteenth centtiry has decided •that 1 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, horses tq opevatboxes. and good dinners to I jewellery, costs large sums; therefore riches are the desideratum of existence. This is especially well understood by women, who, though I 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 magio be tor one ; instant revealed to us, what strauge dramas would see the light—dramas more terrible in their bald and bitter truth than the five*aot tragedies of the Porte St,., Martin J While the Bweet of the arts and refinement, and the refreshment of science and literature are a dead letter to fashionable people, as long as noise, gosßip, and expenditure are the

Mirest and/its d, e > adulatippf Mfield the magic wand', andV.unclose ■,'-, at will the realms of• material > delight. Where formerly a-simple" a gathered unprejentiovislj' rpuiid the., family tea-table, aa occasional visit'i .to the theatre/or a new book sufficed j for recreatiPri and* happiness, the!; jmidale-class;' iii6riage miißt hj&??. carriage aiadhorses r costumes from "the most ruihous dressmakers, ahd bhampagn'e suppers.' * Where do we fifid, now the .courteous; .manner of the.'perfect .gentleman, the* refined amiability of the grande dame % We if we meet aladyin the street to what class she may |belo]j; and as for forms and graces; of speech,, the middle classes had best unlearn all that. ,the aristocracy can teach. A wife looks on her husband as '■" a machine; the contingency that the brain may give way and the machine become worthless, rarely, if ever/ arrest her thoughts, i City men, of coarse, must work r -and if they dp not it is as the natural sequerice from -their own iiicdri*-! peteney "and/'fadlfe:;; the sput:! of approval. prj:jproaches,l either equaUy potent, ever at hisc back;j4he • man slaves' and' toils, and somehow it all seems Jo. : tp Bead-! Sea' ffUitV; tfie.,J cheeVful consciousness .of good woricaboiit his doings; the phantom of' money haunts him, and when his intelligence'would } demand: free' play and"the elasticity''.,of carelessnesS|, J visions of unpaid bills and of hideous possibilities cloud his sight and cripple his faculties.—' The World.'