New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1875-04-02

hensive and elastic, but we all have notion
OF it's meaning; and when the newspa-
pers burst into demonstration like
the lines of an epitaph, the consummate
flower of typographical display, with their
Scandal in High Life!n Sensation in Up
"per Tendon !nor Flutter in the First Circles, y
we all know, without reading further, that
| the trouble is not at the Five Points nor in
Baxter-st As yielding to the universal passion
of curiosity, we read the heightened TITLE
| tattle long drawn out, we discover, not Ior
the first time, that human nature is much the
same everywhere, and that there is no superb
ority for the human being over his propensi-
| ties, in lOrdly housing or in silken hose. This
we have probably learned before, but it is
always new shock to find fresh evidence
that the most brilliant reputation may, any
fine or cloudy morning, turn out to be bub
ble-the "goOd" man bad. the "great
small, the "honest" ill-principled. 1t is not
merely that we experience a sense of having
been defrauded or deceived. When a charac-
ter which has been exemplary is suddenly
ruined-suddenly, as we think-we do not re-
member. as we should, that the old example
1
fallen-that virtue, honor, truth, decency.
| fidelity, are eternal in the abstract, and only
failures in our concrete experiments. Still, tho
degradation of one who has been admired for
excellent qualities, real or supposed, is posi-
| tive loss to the world. When friend has
proved faithless, we cry out in our great sOr-
row that friendship is but O name. In the
same way, when we see responsibility falling
into the mire. we begin to doubt the pOssibil-
ity of living clearly. This is an infirmity,
but we are all very infrm.
| A fierce pauper full of the virus of an insane
psuedo-demOcracy finds inexpressibe comfort
food, even, and drink and warmth-in the
panic which sometimes sweeps like simeon
through Wall Street. The scOffer at all revealed
religion thinks that there is whole armory
Of arguments in the moral mishaps of its min
isters The tawdry cOurtesan, as she sails
upon her mission Of sin and death up and
down under the gaslight, sneers complacently
as she hears the shrill newsboys crying the
shame of some fine lady who would not have
passed her yesterday without gathering up
of skirts to save them from contagion. Good
Heavens! What are we, be we rich or poor,
famous or obscure, prosperous or wretched,
that we should be so hard upon one another
Does not every condition of life to which we
are called have its peculiar dangers and temp
! tatiOnsf There is standard of virtue-the
wise world agreed upon its character and its
proportions in the worlds infancy-but who
of all the myrads who have lived or died.
have lived or died according to it'll Always
| we claim allowance for the weakness of our
common nature, and the biOgrapher is dis
trusted who asserts the perfection of his hero.
Those who would order their lives wisely
must begin by fairly understanding that no
position, whether high or low, is free from
| the temptation to neglect duty, to surrender
to sensuous indulgence, to rely upon false
hood and pretension. to play an empty and
ostentations part and to neglect the para
mount duties arising from the social
| relations. There is one art which man
has cultivated from the first, which he grappled
with Immediately after his fall-the art OF
making excuses; and we are not sure thai
"the Best Society" has a less pressing occasion
for employing it. Certainly there are dangers
| from which the prOletary is exempt. Ii he is
noticed in the newspapers at all, it is not In
| way likely to nourish his self-complacency
| If he has hardly literature enough to help
him through the criminal column of cheap
newspaper, at any rate he writes no poetry
and he delivers no lectures. If his vices are
coarse and repulsivc, he does not decorate
them with the flowers Of philosophy; he never
sprinkles them with colOgne-water rhetoric
nor appeals to them as evidence of his superior
wisdom. If he sins, he may sometimes say
what " the Best Society" cannot say honestly
that he has erred and strayed for want OF
better guidance, and by reason of an empty
stomach. 1t is possible to talk wickedly in
excellent grammar to be selfish after refined
fashion, and to break most of the laws of the
Lord without breaking single law of Lord
Chesterfield. No man will make much moral
progress who does not seek to be better than
his surroundings; and no woman will akancC
in true womany ways, who does not firmly
Danish all the sophistres aud decisions born
of what is miscalled L" the Best Society" There
is society which is entitled to the much
abused superlative. Rich or poor, high or low
born, we may be sure that the wise will fine
| it, and the wise Only.