The Baltimore County union. [volume] (Towsontown, Md.) 1865-1909, 1878-03-16
SELECTED MATTER.
EFFECTS OF WASHINGTON SOCIETY

In Anthony Trollope's "Barcheste
Tower" there is an ecclesiastical gath
ering pictured-a reception given b,
the new bishop of an English diocese
IN which the hostess, ''Mrs. Proudie
moved about with well-regulated grace
measuring out the quantity of her ia
vors according to the quality of hel
guests. ;"
1t is amusing to see how many "Mrs.
Proudies" there are in Washington.
And it is-not-amusing to see how
many nice little wives and good. plain
mothers soiled by taste of gayety in
our republican capital. One members S
wife, when she came here first, few
months ago, was really home-sick for her
little village. But after the cards came
in to her, and she began to fully realize
that she was the wife of a member of
Congress, what airs the country mite
took on herself! Ladies whose claim to
distinction rested upon their innate re-
hnement and intelligence, and not upon
theaccidental position of their husbands.
were passed unnoticed save by the faint
est smilinssless inclination; and the egrade.
or GOODNESS with which the wife of the
new member welcomed them. The
change in the toilet of the lady was mark
ed. Her eye eagerly ran over the dress
es of her acquaintance. From a modest
lady in a plain black silk and smooth
brown locks she burst into the less dis
hneue style of light satin and bare shoul-
ders, and pyramid-shaped head with the
surrounding thatch of frizzes which hides
the broad, beautiful brow. The lady
now trips to her hired cab every day,
and gives her orders to the coachman
with anicy, fault finding tone which she,
poor soul, does not know indicates her
newness to the luxury of a hired team
and livery. Her days are round of
careless, meaningless toadyism; her
nights wild revels, where neither sense
nor comfort ever show their plain, old
fashioned faces.
This woman, before her husbands
election, would have sat up with her
neighbor's sick child. She would have
made its tiny grave clothes and put
flowers in its dead hands, the while her
eyes were misty with sympathy. With
her own needle and thread she would
have put the Grape bands on the parents
and watched that no jarring
sound or care grated upon them the lit
tie while they were left alone with their
dead. She would have stayed in the
and put away little dresses
and broken toys while the family were
at the cemetery. She will never do it
again. Never again find time for the
sweet amenities of life, or the comfort
ing sympathy with the bereaved. She
will never again be satisfied to live in a
country town, or 60 to church sewing
societies, or sit up with the sick. She
is above that now. And yet she was
sweet young girl; a fair young wife; a
gentle young mother.
Left in retirement she would have
bloomed out long, fragrant life of good
deeds, and been truly mourned at her
death. Sore hearts that she had bound
up would have remembered her, per-
haps, as a clear-eyed saint, who wore
soft white cap and plain alpaca dress
in her old age, and on autumn Sundays,
when quiet hung like benediction over
the still woods, they would have led
little children around the simple head
stone, have loitered and told of her
lovely life until the memory breathed
into infant hearts would, like the seed
in the soft mellow earth, have brought
forth good deeds in some future strait.
Thus, although dead, she would live
again. But now she is spoiled for
everything. She will fly her round,
fritter away her day, drop out of life,
and not ripple on the tide of fashiona-
Bile society will show where she has gone
down. She will perchance have big
but her eulogy will be mean
ingless, and her epitaph awaken no ten
der thought in any heart.
There are hundreds of women, the
currents of whose lives have been turned
by the veering winds and treacherous
sand bars along this coast. Power makes
fools of men admiration makes fools of
women. They can't stand it. They have
not independence to set up and carry
on an ideal life which would satisfy their
thirsting minds and elevate their souls.
They are not bad, nor really weak, but
they drift into the sameneSs and mean
ingless round, and in time the whirl be-
comes second nature, and they cannot
strike out a straight line for themselves.