Ashtabula weekly telegraph. (Ashtabula, Ohio) 1880-1886, 1880-03-05
OUR NATIONAL CAPITAL.
How Lent Is Observed In Washing
tOn-RellgIOn as a fine ArT-"FrOm
Grave 90 Gay,
From our Regular Correspondent.


From our Regular Correspondent
Although we are in the midst Of Lent,
there seems to be only pretended sus-
pension Of gayety There is, OF course,
stricter observance of the forms Of religion.
The orthodox young lady will leave her
bed at 2 O'Clock in the morning, after hav-
ing crept into 1t three hours previously
dead tired with ball, and, after hurried
toilet, will go out in the chill, damp air,
that she may be present at morning ser
vice, in the fashionable West End. The
milkman, going his early rounds is sure to
encounter u succession of these fashiona-
BILE nymphs performing the pilgrimage to
the altar on foot, and carrying two or
three devotional books in her hands. Hus-
bands and lovers are snoring between the
sheets while she is on her knees in the dim
religious light Of church. The act is one
Of penance, and she is profoundly con-
WINGED of its efficacy. The perseverance
with which this custom is observed sug-
gests considerations on which the moralist
might have good deal to say. She
atheists, who haYe years and ugliness on
their side, may scott to their hearts con-
tent, but If SapphO would keep herself un-
spotted from the world, she must be con-
tent with proclaiming her skepticism in
her rhymes, and observe her Lent most
serupulously. ..
This truth has been consistently acted
upon at all ages of the Church, and the
six penitentiHl weeks that we are now in
the midst Of, are celebrated in many DO
lite circles with show Of deyOtion which
proves cOnclusively how well religion as
fine art is understood at the present day.
Entertainments and supper parties, at
which Luoullus or Apicius might have as
| sisted; luxurious entertainments Of all
kinds are Of nightly occurrence. Another
M. Dupln might arise to write fresh es-
say upon the "iurs efrene dss fsmRles, {"
and it would no longer be in Paris, but
in Washington, that his stinging sermon
would have to be preached to unheeding
ears. Many of the fashionable and dag-
zling beauties Of Washington represent in
each case an expenditure upon their toi-
| lets OF thousands Of dollars, "as they stand
upin the ball room," while, simultaneous
ly, the shops of Mr.. Gait, and Mr.. Semken,
the chief jewellers of the Capital, are crowd
ed by eager purchasers of diamonds, en-
eralds, and sapphires. Fortunes, lightly
accumulated, are nowhere spent more
| lightly than in the United States, and the
hum of prosperity, which began to make
itself distinctly heard once more in Octo-
ber last, has led, naturally, to that zen
tertainment boom" which at this moment
occupies Washington to the exclusion of
unwelcOme thoughts about the many toll
ers, both white and black, who, through
out the length and breadth Of the Great
Republic, but in far more literal sense,
are in the sad condition Of Miss Flora
McFlimsy, who "had nothing TO wear. !"
To sad and sober minds the thought might
occasionally occur that as Aristotle prophe-
sled more than twenty centuries ago, de-
moeraeies have an irresistible tendency to
merge in plutoeracies, and that the exist
ence of opulent families in Republican
States leads naturally in few generations
to craving for monsrchial Institutions
with their ennobling titles, their aristo-
cratic distinctions, and. as Thomas JEFF
ferson phrased it, "with the tiusel and
glitter Of the effete Old World.