, 1881-12-07

perfect story, to have done =
"Prlvate luxury under the Second EN-
pire found a princely representative in q
tinancier. A journalist waited on the late
Baron James de RothSchild to request
permission to go over his establishment
and take notes. Leave was given, but
when the notes had been completed, the
Baron forbad the publication. The jour-
naliSt, cOolly saying that the prohibition
came too late, did publish them. They
show that there We're separate departments
for soups, sauces, roasting, frying, vege-
tables, sweets, &c, and that S~eventy-twO
persons were employed in the kitchens and
the cellar. The famous CarGma was for
many years the chef. The fGte given by
the Baron at his chateau of La Ferriere
to the Emperor was, above all, remarkable
for the quantity of game provided for the
bdttueS at one of which, so ran the story,
a parrot, disguised as a partridge, fell to
the Imperial gun, crying, : Wee PEmpe-
reNr Was it Il witticiSm, a cynlclSm,
or a real mistake of gender in the Amphi-
tryon, when, thanking his Imperial guest
for the honour done his poor house by
the acceptance of his hospitality, he said,
'J'en garderai t~oujours lie m6moire 2"
If LuculluS could AVE entertained an
emperor, henotonly wOuldnothave thought
of that savage joke, but he would not have
SCCll IlS DuIlll, lIC uITuu VI pAOOASoAlJ
with Il keen sense of the value OF money
being entirely modern. The new tone OF
the great Courts, the comparative privacy
of modern life, and a certain kink OF selfish
intelligence-aS shown in the noble who
gives 100000 for a gold dinner-service, but
demands discount for ready mOney-keep
down the old excuses of prodigality and
that is, of a sort, an improvement.
But We do not quite understand why the
writer III the Quarterly seems so doubtful
of the evil effect of luxury OF this kind,
even when it is kept apart, which is rarely
the ease, from mere SenSuality. We do
not expect him, when intent only on
amusing his readers, to write like a censor
moran, still less to scOld Nero for the
predictions waste of the Golden House.
We agree thoroughly that large expenditure
on art, where true art is obtained III return,
is not prodigality and we are quite aware
that prOdigality is in part a question of
proportion, and that an Indian carpet may
for one man be a p~rOdigaIty, and for
another little more than a social decency.
But Vaudeville went miles beyond this,
and the essayist in the Quarterly says he
follows him halfway. Vaudeville wrote
in the Fable of the Bees =
Thus every part was full of vice,
Yet the whole mass a paradise;
Flattered in peace and feared in wars,
They were tn esteem of foreigners.
The root of evil, ~avarice,
That damn'd ill-natured baneful vice,
Was slave to prodigality,
That noble sin whilst luxury
Employed a million of the poor,
And odious pride a million more"
And when JOve made all men honest, the
impoverished Commonwealth sank, never
more to rise, all mode of gain ceasing
with all waste of means. Even if no truths
were true but the economic, it would not be
true that ~unprOductive expenditure could
enrich q State but the essence of the
question is not to be sought in economies.
If a marquis always travels by special
train simply to display at once his wealth
and his exclusiveness, he may enrich the
railway and possibly the State more than
by boarding his gold, but he helps in the
most marked way to degrade the popular
ideal of great life. Mad p~rodigalities are
not perpetrated for the sake of i" making
business or to encourage art, or ever
necessarily to increase the personal
enjoyment of the prodigal-though, of
course, that may enter into the matter, as
when a millionaire has ice sent after him a
thousand miles in a tropical country
but to excite the applause of the vulgar, to.
stir in them the idea that a great man is
among them. That an enormous and
visible recklessness of expenditure does