The Wheeling daily register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1864-1878, 1876-11-09
"TEMPTATION."
The Dangers TO which Fashionable
women are Exposed.

x
inspirations and unruly thoughts. In
modern times the conception of temtation
has been modified, and is held to apply
rather to deeds and words than to
thoughts ard desires. Yet though it
may possess q more tangible shape, temp
tatlon is as great power as ever, aud
our complex civilization has lent it even
more subtle weapons. We are without
the temptation of the PAGAN world to Sc
cure comfort and peace at the price of
theological spOslacy. We are not liable
t. be burnt or tortured for cur opinions.
We may shape our lives pretty much as
we please, 30 long as they are consonant
with the current notions OF decency and
the habits of our contemporaries. We
are not born slaves, nor are we exposed
to the risk of being overrun and captured
by barbarians, who would force us into
an estate worse than slavery. Tenpta-
ton is 8 purely physical manifestation,
and though the cry of intellectual en-
lightenment has gone up from our midst,
never was there time when msterialism
of conduct, if not Of opinion, was more
rampant than the present. The MAORI
ty of hxman minds have no high heroic
idea, but are we'll contented with puny
pleasures, small aims, and poor results.
To such as these temptation, though it
may BIZ petty, is very real indeed. 1t
comes in hundred ways and shapes; in
the facility tor altering measures, for
dealing out fslse weight, for slandering
another man and perhaps depriving him
of his bread, for sitting still and doing
nothIng-slmost the greatest temptation
of sll-while around US our fellow crea-
lures work and toll, or starve for lack OF
that affiuence for which we cannot find
any use.
But while temptstion irresistib.y as
sails the steadIest and most honest OF
men, it presses oven more hardly on wo
man. 1t is holly asserted and constantly
believed that guarded and sheltered in
happy and cultivated home, with no cares
of Importance TO annoy them, and none
of the grinding troubles of men to weigh
them down, the weaker sex ought to be
entirely safe from the remotest possibility
of temptation. This is fallacy. The
temptations of poor women who have to
earn their living at q considerable disad-
vantage compared with men are OBJ
vious We are now more concerned with
that class who, as they are raised above
the sordid cares of money getting, are
more free to indulge in the relaxations of
pleasure or the satisfaction of the intel
iect. Unfortunately the tendency OF
modern society is to split up into factions,
not to economic force by Capitalization.
Such multitudes of diverse interests flood
the world that each person is apt to seek
his diversions where he chooses. A man
may belong to the literary coterie, to the
scientific body, to the sporting club, or to
the haunts of vice. Young men, as rule,
prefer amusement to instruction. Thus
science pursues It's lofty aims silently and
calmly, consorting with kindred spirits,
while pleasure or the butterflies Of fash
ion know of nothing better than them
selves. A girl must be bas bleu, not an
adept of scientific problems, nor a good
classical scholar, If she would please in
the '.best" society. Women do not rig
mate, but men lead and women nimbly
follow. 1t has pleased the stronger sex
to crave luxuries which were formerly
undresmpt of-to require sybaritic indul-
gences which twenty years ago would
have been despised as effeminate. Ma
turally a wife becomes indoctrinated with
her husbands views and fancies, and edu
Gates her daughters in the same train OF
thought AS the stone, carelessly thrown
into the middle Of silent lake, breaks its
plsciditv, the troubled surface spreading
itself out and widening into ever larger
circles, SO the example Of a man, his
thoughts, tancies, or eccentricities, lntiu-
ences for good or evil the moral health of
a whole generation.
There has been such demand Tor lux
urious accompaniment IS to existence that
fashion has become to the majority wei
come habit, and to the girls who have
reached maturity in the meantime an i'm
nerstiye n necessity. Their whole existence
Is one protracted act of worship of GER
tain kind of sensyslity. Not the Oriental
sensuality of the Empress Popp@a nor
the unbrindled license and coarseness OF
Christina of Sweden, vet for all that
life which, enervating and weakening
healthy aspirations and powers, and re-
moving ali necessity for exertion and the
disciplin. of the passions, must needs re-
duce its yotsries farther and farther be-
low the level of q good woman. While
modern prudery points at the coarseness
of Mr.. Behn's novels, in what way are
thew more immoral or more subyersive
of principle than in the famous French
novels of the period, of the notorious and
not more innocuous limitations OF the
Ouids and Miss Broughton type, which
| are the ordinary reading OF maldens IN
their teens9 Women used to be laughed
at for thinking life but synonym for
love vet surely a true and constant love
founded on something romantic, and sus-
ceptible of the noble and the generous
feelings OF the mind was better than the
passionate pleadings of unprlncipled her
Dimes, and the perpetual dwelling on their
aashlv charms the crimson OF their lips,
the whi.eness of their limbs, and the var
led and rapturous warmth OF the true
lovers kisses, 49, MN -. a..
The freedom of Intercourse between the
sexes, which has been triumphsntly quot
ed BY some as proof Of the innocence
of England and American girls, is In IL
self great temptation. The average
young man is not particular in bis tax,
and, so long as he finds willing listen
! or, will rattle on about himself and his
concerns, perhaps enlarging on topics
which ought to startle modest ears. Inc
! bloom of reserve is, however, pretty well
brushed of the debutsnte after couple
OF seasons, and with that sdaptability
which IL the especial sppanage Of woman