The Jeffersonian. [volume] (Stroudsburg, Pa.) 1853-1911, 1853-08-04
Fearful Energy.

treme, is drawn with mastcr-hand. Il
is extracted from a long article in the
Presbyterian Quarterly Rcctcac, under tho
head of Young America Read-pause
and reflect!
There is in this country consuming
passion for gain. The nation is mad
It rushes with incredible avidity after
speculations, or works sixteen hours a
day that it may have the means of q
senseless profusion and glittering friyol-
ity. Never was there a less avaricious
people. Here foreigners fall into their
great and enduring error. The nation
in this, as in every thing, Is eztr0vagant
as no people ever were from the begin
ming hitherto. This can be shown in
many ways for example, our imports last
year were upwards of two hundred mil
lions of money, and this for young peo-
pie of only twenty three millions, who
have not yet cut down hundredth part of
the primeval forest trees, or broken up
more than a fragment of the prairies that
have been accumulating rich vegetable
mould since the food We tried to pay
for these imports, and so sent abroad
every production of the soil that Europe
would take, and then added nearly forty
millions of specie, and still the balance Of
trade was tens of millions against u.s.
These immense imports, in great par,
are consequence of our extrava-
CANT living. In the old world and
in ancient times few mobiles and mer-
chants we're princes, and the masses were
humble and frugal perforce; but here is a
whole people struggling to be not only po-
litical soyerigns, but to live in luxury
like the peerage Of England. Our re-
marks have neither an aristocratic nor q
democratic bearing We do not think
the glory of man is to live in fine
house with glided furniture, of which the
eye tires, and with an army of servants
who arc endlessly troublesome. If any
body chooses to claim an equality with the
pecrage, we have no quarrel with him
What we are saying, is that no country,
can physically support hundreds of thous-
ands of palaces, and that the extravaganza
which desires it is madness and folly
Whether there ought to be any palaces
costing money by the hundred thousand,
we are not deciding. 1t is difficult for
our theology to reach this evil, for
mode OF thinking beneath, like the those
convulsions of which geology tells US, up
heaves theology, and the seething mass
forever takes new forms of struggle, en-
terprise, competition, luxury, corruption.
1t is miserable ambition to toll oneself
to death, not to have, as Wordsworth ex-
presses it, plain living and high thinking
not to have happy, cultivated, and re-
fined family around one, not to have the
appliances of pleasant sociability with
friends and acquaintances, not to have
the means of intellectual improvement, or
of enlarged usefulness, or of wide inter-
course with the noble and the gifted; but
merely to appear highly respectable, to
make the show of being rich, to ill rooms
scarcely ever used, with costly furniture,
to crowd house once or twice year
with a mass of people whose claim to the
best society rests merely on their keep
ing up the same appearances. Yet this
is the object for which, in great part, ur-
ban America labors and tolls, to which it
sacrifices thousand things Of far more
importance. Fashion tyranizes over men
as we'll as women, and conventionalities
that no one really likes, freezes up the
life blood of the nation. The result is
almost incredible, when one fairly analy-
zes the life OF our people. They alter
nate between solitude and crowds. They
fill the streets and public vehicles; they
crowd churches, lecture-rooms, concerts,
theaters; they jostle each other on change,
in business places, and along fashionable
walks; they whirl around in the intoxica-
ton of the dance, or exchange inane COM
pliments with hundreds of people at a
ball or party. The remainder of their
time is spent in solitude at home, and
those who dislike this crushing publicity
can scarce find a medium between that
and solitary reading or the society alone
of their own family. Is there not more
excellent way! Is there no such thing
as moderation? Is the common sense
which was claim as our characteristic to
have no influence in moulding the man
ners of our people? Must we forever