The Grange advance. [volume] (Red Wing, Minn.) 1873-1877, 1876-06-07
LIFE IN PARIS.


LIFE IN PARIS.
The incest Place in the World to Go to the
Devil In.
Charles Dudley Warner writes from
London to the Hartford Courant No
doubt the world will have to begin
over again. It cannot be that this
Paris civilization is the last work in
civilization. And yet it would be diff
ticult to say how you could improve it
IN its kind. Nowhere else, venture
to say, is life made SO easy, so guarded
from shocks and irregularities the cor
ners are all rounded off, and you glide
on in a smooth current. 1t may .bear
you to the devil that is your look
out; nobody will question you-every
body, in fact, will kindly help you.
Yet, after all, going to the devil here,
as elsewhere, is a matter of your own
choice.
Perhaps this is one reason why
foreigners like to come here. They
can choose their way without any inn
pertinent interference, without any
chidings in fact from their own con-
sciences, for they ascertain that the
monitor which they have regarded as
conscience is only the lettering opin-
ion or standard Of living, which they
have left at home. And if sin consists
in the violation of ones conscience,
they get on more pleasantly here than
elsewhere.
It would be crude injustice to sup.
pose that the Paris civilization has
made life agreeable by eliminating
conscience; but to a superficial obser-
walton it seems that things are done
here and lives are lived that would be
condemned elsewhere, without the
least feeling of guilt or, least of all,
remorse. You may account for this
by saying that vice here, even in it's
coarser forms, is not so vulgar and Of
fensive, as it is, say, in London ; that
the refinement of the life here extends
even to that which is essentially I'M
refined +; but it remains true, and it is
a phenomenon of a very curious sort,
abundantly testified by competent OBJ
servers of Paris life, that the great sin
of society, the descent of woman from
her vestal throne, is not the irrepara-
bic ruin here that it is in any English
speaking race, and is not attended
with the same sense of degradation or
loss of self-respect.
You logically say that this very fact
condemns society itself. But it won't
answer to Jump to that conclusion
without asking if the English capital
nd or hn rryh1
sounder than the French. I confess
that l have no means of Judging
either, except by what I hear, for a
travellers external observations are
very delusive. Nowhere, I suppose,
are the ties of home life, the affection
ate attachments Of the family, strong
er than in France, and this sweet vir-
tue is at the root of all social sound
ness. The casual sojourner will neither
hastily attack nor defend the develop.
ment of life he sees here; it is enough
to try a little to understand it.
You remember the expressive shop
signs here, Au Bon Diable. There are
no bad devils in Paris: the devil is
always good fellow, almost a gentle
man, and the primary assumption that
he is so may tend to put him, for
aught know, upon good behavior.
At least you see that the moralities
are judged from point of view oppo-
site to ours. Life is begun on differ.
ent plane, and it is fair before pro-
nouncing judgment on the plane, to
look at the results.
And what have chiefly in mind now
are what may be called the material
and physical results. If the society
here is as corrupt as we are told it is,
and am neither saying yes or no to
this impression. it is remarkable that
there is here 50 vigorous, so virile a
development of some of the best fruits
of what we call civilization. We read
of the decadence of ancient societies
which wealth and luxury had corrupt.
ed, of their extinction and effeminacy
There are certainly no external signs
OF such a result here. No one can
doubt the vigor of the race. Of course
Paris and it, like all other great cit
les, would probably not long sustain
itself if it were not constantly rein.
forced by fresh country blood-offers
examples of enfeebled youth and pre-.
mature old age, but the general impress
sion one receives is of men strong and
full of vitality and of women in high
er and sounder health than the wo.
men Of America, women capable of
taking care of themselves in the world
and producing the armies that France
still thinks she needs to maintain her
position in Europe.
I do not know what show France
will make in our Centennial exhibit
ton, whether her industries and her
artificers will astonish the world us
they did at the world fair in London in
1851, but believe that the interna-