The farmer and mechanic. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1877-1885, 1879-07-31
A SOCIAL PARADOX.
The Proud Nobility Of England
Counting a Frail Actress.

What do we behold? The noblest, the
proudest. and the most vlrtuous arlstocracy
of Europe are going into a species OF insane
ecstaey over a French woman whose Ines
man talents are Of the first order, and whose
morals are at an ebb 50 low that nothing but
her brilliant powers and faculty to command
enormous sums of money save her from the
worst of outlawrv. Mademolselle Sara has
four children, and yet never wore the wed
ding ring. Her code of morality Is not that
laid down by every enlightened nation, and
by the God of Heaven and Earth, but such
IS obtains at Salt Lake and In the Oneida
Community, the practice OF which saps So
sietv at the centre and wars against the Sa-
redness of the family relation, upon which
civilization depends, and, without which,
the world would fall into a sensual degrada-
ton such as precipitated the downfall OF
Babylon, Assyria, Rome and Greece. Now,
had Mademoiselle Sara been a poor woman,
Who had sinned not against the light, but IN
a moment of desperate temptation, and tai
len but once, the doors of neither Duke, nor
Marquis, nor Earl, nor Baron would be open
TO her-nay, she would be thrust contume-
Iiously upon the parish with death In her
heart and the scarlet letter branded not upon
her heaving bosom but upon her clammy
brow. If Mademoiselle Sara had been the
IDuTtSI ~ lllC NduShlClS u wv WY Wy
acceptable to God and sweet and wholesome
In the sight of the seraphim, but without
talent or worldly distinction of any character,
think you the splendid portals of Belgravla
would have opened to receive her? What
miserable turnkey would so much as condo
scend to address her civil.y? How does it
happen, then, that this proud nobility,
prOuder even of clean homes than of the
possible descent from som barber who came
over with the Norman or some frail Nell
Gwynn of Charles lis Court and harem-
how does it happen that these stainless mo-
fhers, these demurely correct daughters,
these rigidly, starchly precise granddames-
the paragons and dragons of virtue-how
does it happen, we repeat, that these and
such as these scramble to do honor to Made
moiselle Sara and value the least glance
from her as more valuable than pearls and
diamonds and far above rubies % And
the solution of this paradox is an easy one.
1t comes in the shape that princes and
fools of our sex shower costly gifts upon
dancing women and prime donne, who have
exceptional manifestation of limb or voice,
and not a rag of good repute. Purity with
out talent is not fashionable. TO tread the
thorny path of duty is not dazzling to the
butterfly swarm of good society" Let the
pious maid eat her heart away in a dim gar
ret and die unattended by any human hand,
but caught up in a cloud of celestial glory,
10 star the heaven themselves with the
light never shone on sea or shore. Let
poverty and decency keep to themselves in
she shadow of a mighty want of food and
sympathy, SO far as the people of May Fair
are concerned. But room for Mademoiselle
Sara, who has the mimicry of the immortals,
the Jeaute du diabIe, and utter defiance of
The canons of the decalogue. Room for her
by the side of inviolate Majesty itself, for
everything is pardoned to genius, even when
Its wings trail in the sewer and flash like the
plnmage of the raven instead of rejecting
The down of the dove Augusta Chronicle
s1Rd COnstttuttonutst.