The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1868-09-08

make herself out to have been very I'LL indeed In
a more Mysterious way, aud leave you to won.
der at the extraordinary physique, OF
fashiopable women, which enables them
to live on the most friendly touch-and,
90 terms with death, and to overcome mortal
naladies by an effort of the will and the delights
OF ducal ball. The tavorite physician has
hard time OF II with these ladies; and the more
popular he is. the harder his work. 1t is we'll
for his generation when he is q man of honor
and integrity, and knows how to add selfrespect
and moral power to the qualities which nave
made him the general favorite. For his lnhu-
ence over that idle woman is for the time
almost unlimited, like nothing so much as that
Of the handsome Abbe and the fascinating @
aSDS:Ss 1sctSr OF CstSc sSS.a anj '1S
it to evil issues, be can. And,
however great the merit in him that he does
that he could. Sometimes the fashionable
woman takes up with the clergyman instead Of
the physician, and coquets with religious exer-
cises rather than with drugs; but neither clergy
of life, or give her truth or common sense.
Sometimes there is huttering show of
art patronage, aud the fashionable woman
has a handsome painter or well bred
musician in her train, whom she pets
publicly and patronizes graciously. Sometimes
1t is young poet or q rising novelist con-
sidcrably honored by the association, who
ded,cates his next novel to her, or writes verses
in her praise, with such a fervency of gratitude
as sets the base Philstines on the scent of the
secret, and perhaps guessing not far amiss. For
the fashionable woman has always some love
affair on hand, more or less platonic, according
| to her own temperament or the bOldness of the
| man-a love affair III which the least ingredient
! is love in any real or wholesome sense; a love
| affair which Is vanity, idleness, a dissolute i'm
| aginatlon, and contempt of such prosaic things
| as morals; love affair not even TO be excused
| by the tragic frenzy of earnest passion, aad
! which may be guilty and yet not true. The physi-
cal effects of such life as this are as bad as the
mental, and both are as bad as can be.
feverish, oveIstratned condition of health either
| prevents the fashionable woman from being a
| mother at all, or makes her the mother of ner-
| vous, sickly children. Many woman OF high
rank is at this moment paying bitterly for the
| disappointment OF which she herself, in her illi-
mitable folly, has been and Is the sole and only
| cause. And, whether women like to hear
IT.. or not It tn Is none the or less thsr be
born at all is that they may in their
| turn bear children. The unnatural feeling
against maternity existing among fashionable
| women is one OF the worst mental signs of their
state, as their frequent inability to be mothers at
all is enc of the worst physical results. This is
| a condition of things which no false modesty or
| timid reserve should keep in the background,
| for it is question of national Importance, and
| will soon become one of national disaster unless
| checked by healthier current and more natu-
| raj circumstances.
| Dress, dissipation, and flirting make up the
| questionable lines which enclose the life OF the
| fashionable woman, and which enclose nothing
useful, nothing good, nothing deep or true
or holy. Her piety is a pastime; her
| art the poorest pretence; her pleasure consists
| only in hurry and excitement, alternating with
| debasing sloth, in heartless coquetry, or in
| lawless indulgence, as nature made her more
| vain or more sensual. AS vie she ful6s no
| wifely duty in any grand or loving sense, tor the
most part regarding her husband only as
| banker or an adjunct according to the terms of
| her marriage settlement; as mother she is a
stranger to her children, to whom nurse aud
goyerness supply her place, and give such poor
makeshift for maternal love as they are ena bled
or inclined. In no domestic relation is she of
the smallest value, and Of none in any social
| circumstance beside the mere adorning of
| room-if she IS pretty-and the help she gives
to trade through her expenditure she lives only
in the gaslght, and her nature at last becomes as
artificial as her habits. As years go on, and she
changes from the acknowledged belle to the
femme pdsSee, she goes through period of fran
| tic endeavor 10 retain her youth; aDd even when
time has cutched her with too firm hand to
be shaken off, and she begins to leel the mfr
mites which she still puts out all her strength
| to conceal, even then she grasps at the depart
ing shadow, and fresh daubs the crumbling
ruin, in the belief that the worlds eyes are dim,
and that stucco may pass for marble for another
| year or two longer. Or she becomes Bel
| g1avian mother, with daughters to sell to the
| highest bidder; and then the aim of her life
is to secure the purchaser Her daughters are
never objects OF real love with the fash
| ionable woman. They are essentially her
rivals, and the idea of carrying on her life in
theirs, OF forgetting herself in them, occurs to
| her only as forecast OF death. Even from her
! SONS she shrinks, rather than not, as living evil
dences of the lapse of time which she cannot
! deny, and awkward az nXlng uateS; ana Jnere Is
! not home presided over by a fashionable
woman where the family is more than mere
name, mere social convention loosely held
! together by circumstances, not by love.
| Closing such LIE as this comes the union.
ored end, when the miserable-made-up old
creature totters down into the grave, where
paint and padding and glossy plaits cut from
some fresh young head, are of no more avail;
and where death, which makes all things real,
reduces her life Of lies to the nothinguess it has
been from the beginning. What does she leave
| behind her? A memory by which her children
may order their own lives, in proud assurance
that so they will order them best for virtue and
of time misused, of duties untulilled, of love
discarded for pleasure, and of lifelong sacrifice
| of all things good and pure for setshness? We
all know examples of the worldly old woman
clinging to the last, batlike, to the old
roofs and rafters and we all know how hear.
| ty we despise her, and how we ridicule
| her in our hearts, if not by our words. IT the
Ieigning queens Of fashion, at present young and
| beautiful, would but remember that they are
only that worldly old woman in embryo, aud
that in a very few years they will be her exact
likeness, unhappily repeated for the scorn of the
skeleton at the feast had wonderfully wise
meaning, crude and gross as it was in form. For
though its nlementO nlori too constantly before
us, would either sadden or brutaliZe as we were
thoughtful or icentous, yet 1t Is good to see the
end of ourselves, and to study the meaning and
| lesson OF our lives in those of our Droto-
types and elder likenesses. The pleasures of
the world are, as we all know very potent and
| very aluring, but nothing can be more unsatis-
| fying If taken as the main purpose of life
| While we are young, the mere stirring of the
| blood st8nds instead of anything more reals but
as we go on, and the pulse flags, and pleasure
bic occasions get rare and more rare, we find
| that we have been like the prOdigal con- and