The Nashville daily union. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1862-1866, 1865-08-23
A Neral Drawn rom tAs Daily Jour.
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A Moral Drawn nom tAs Daily Jour.
Hals.
One page of one OF the morning Jour
mails Of Saturday last was filed with sc
counts Of the festivities going on at
Saratoga, Cape hay. Newport, Nahant,
Lake George, and other watering
| places. Turning to the next page the
reader found an account Of the theft of
/ three hundred thousand dollars BY an
obscure bank clerk. On one page we
are told Of the beautiful forrns and the
elegant toilets Of fashionable women ;
on the next Of the crime and debaUch-
cry Of clerk and his harlots. Here
are dances and dinners, there disgrace,
despair and suicide
/ is there no connection between the
two2 Is it merely BY accident that we
tnd in the same sheet two such pic
lures of life? Or is there not rather S
profound warning 20 be drawn from the
eollOcationf We hate the vice which
is 50 nakedly before us-may We not as
well consider what produces it2 There
was q time when men and women were
content to live plainly, to work patient
IL, TO await eontentedly the sure, If
moderate, rewards Of industry and tenn
perance- Il is fortunate for us, as q
people, that the great majority Of
Americans have stin this patience and
contentment Il is not true, what the
sensation Journals would persuade US,
that our society is made up of such gifts
tering and foolish butterflies, and de.
praved and reckless hawks, as figure in
the fashionable chronicles and shine at
balls and in the gambling heIls
But il IS true that a large and grow
ing class Of Americans make haste to
be rich, and delight TO spend their
quickly gotten means in unrepublican
display and vice. And when Smith,
speculator, ambitious to dazzle hotel
walters and ehambermaids, shines with
his fashily-dressed wife at Saratoga,
and disports himself before the world
as an elegant and dissipated idler, need
he be surprised that his or his neigh
ber s clerks viii some day walk off with
-hisInoney, and are found to have been
initiating their master at his expense
in the humber concert saloon? Like
master like man" ia an old and true
saying The young man who comes
from the country with correct, and
even puritanical ideas, sees his employ
er driving fast horses, drinking costly
wines, living extravagantly in every
way, and how long is it before be too is
infected with the desire to live at the
same rate
But he ought not 10 be" Ought he
not He looks to his superiors, to
those whom he knows to be older. and
believes to be wiser than himself, for
example. Is he wrong3 Perhaps-he
is, but he is only mortal-his blood is
fred as easily rs his master's, and the
alluring picture of life's pleasures,
which that master presents TO him, too
surely wins him TO other hopes and ex-
pectations than those with which he
came to the city.
But because there Is virtue shan
there be no cakes and ale2' Truly,
but let it be cakes and ale, and not RI
otous living, not useless and tasteless
extraYagance in every part of life; let |
il be plain, substantial enjoyment, not
a pell-mell racing after pleasure, and |
the feverish draining to the dregs Of |
every cup. Let it be the sober, steady, /
temperate enjoyment of honorably /
won leisure, not the senseless and |
shameful display and extrayagance
which disgraces the mobiles of mon
arcby in the esteem of people, and |
which is doubly disgraceful in a re-
public.
While pleasure seekers run riot at /
and Cape May, we shall con- |
tinue to hear Of clerks and other hum /
bic pleasure seekers, taking their !
course st the expense of their employ /
ers. The two phenomena are necessa-
rily connected. AS one grows so viii 1
the other. We cannot draw the line;
we cannot say this man shall live dis I
orderly life at fifty thousand per an
mum, and this one, his servant, shall /
remain model Of all the virtues st
twelve hundred. 1t is the masters |
walk that forms the servant, and it is /
the masters eye that makes him faith /
full Opportunity and importantly are /
too strong for average virtue, and cakes /
cease to satisfy us when they are de-
spised by those above us.
Nor let the fashionable jewellers
think that they win the es> eem of the |
public by their foolish ostentation. 1t |
is q mercy of the reporters that they |
conceal, IN initials, the names of those |
whose vulgar and unseemly display at |
tracts their praises. TO print the |
names in full would be to hold them up
to the contempt of the great mass of the /
people; 10 point the finger of scorn at |
them. For whatever may be thought |
to the contrary, there is, in the Amer
ican mind, a strong love for, and adj
miration Of, simplicity, a belief that |
plain courses and q frugal life are best,
not only for the individual bat for 80.
ciety, and that the way of life which |
prevails this year at the prominent
watering. places is anti-republioan, in
iurions and disreputable. It needs but
another summer like the present to
drive all seli>respeeting people from
such places as Saratoga Already our
hest citizens are seeking quieter re-
sorts. They DO not like to expose their /
sons and daughters to the temptations,
to acauaint them with the modes OF
life. or TO place them in the company
of those who take the lead in the prev
Slent fashionable riots. They prefer
ouieter and more rational enjoyments
for themselves and their families
]. PosL