Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1884-08-11
Keeping Up Appearances. n

\ vast amount of Senseless, improbable
fraud-chietly upon themselves-is per-
petrated by class of people who live in 4
dreamy state of melancholy uncertainty
| regarding their social position. Especially
is this true Of those Of them who, through
unavoidable reversce of needless prodigal-
ity, have been reduced from comfortable
competence TO extreme poverty, though it
is found to some extent even among those
who are poor by inheritance. This, l
think, is in great measure due TO our cdl,-
cation. Our mental powers are refined and
cultivated beyond our physical ability to
sustain them, the effect being TO dwarf our
sensibilities and finer feelings.
These aspiring souls have an insatiate
craving TO be esteemed d" fashionable" :" to
be recognized as Of the ton :" to have
entrcc 10 al the swell mansions and enter
tainmentS: but to attain and maintain this
coveted pre-eminence Mrs. Grundy de
mands display of opulence or at least
some visible prctense of it.
No matter how mcager may be the active
surroundings, how hard the struggle for
mere existence, they must hide all this
must conceal their penury and distress, and
appear to revel in all the external glory of
grandeur and wealth. Their real lives may
border upon the confines Of starvation
they may subsiSt upon one or at least two
sCanty meals per day, may sleep upon
straw, walk upon bare chamber floors,
attire themselves from necessity i'll the
cheapest, himsieSt fabrics, do all their
own housework, yet if they can throw
open an elegantly furnished parlor. its
walls covered with cheap paintings re-
spiendent in gorgeous frames. It's corners
filled with cracked or broken china, hideous
earthenwarc and other useless, unsightly
trumpeIy dignified by the title OF " bric-a-
brac,' if they can on occasion appear in
moderately sumptuOus yestmcnts, and
| manage to achieve =" reception" or 4 tea
in proper season, no one troubles to inquire
how they exist the rest of the year, how
their upper stories are furnished or their
larders provided. Mrs. Grundy becomes
their patron, their pride is appeased and
they are ostensibly happy
| think this is altogether wrong, and that
it evidences Il reckless disregard of truth
and honesty wholly indefcnsiblc While
none of us may wish TO be entirely ex-
cluded from the pale of so-called society if
society demands the sacrifice of our health
duty, comfort and conscience to its auto
cratic sway, society exacts more than We
should yield. Comfort of heart. mind and
estate. approval of conscience and an hon
est pride, think far more to be desired
than the smiles and carcsses of fashionable
society, SO insincere, so ephemcral.
! Man is 4 gregarious animal, and re-
quires, to develop his hieh and nobler
qualities, association with his species, but
this association need not be with the vain,
selfish, irrational minority falsely called
society. Far wiser and better is inter
course with the frank, honest, kindly cor
dial, great majority, who create for them
selves and constitute the purest and best
society, wherein no fraud and sham is ad-
mitted, and where none is required to keep
up false appearances.-L 1.-THE Household.