The western sentinel. [volume] (Winston-Salem, N.C.) 1887-1926, 1888-02-02
THE WESTERN SENTINEL: THURSDAY FEBRUARY p 1888

20 snlno i.nv opuers. Inougn the heavens
fall they must be Gin the fashion,
The most famous frauds of the day
have resulted from this feeling. It keeps
hundreds of men struggling for their
commercial existence. The trouble is
that some are caught and incarcerated if
their larceny be small. If it be great
they escape and build their castles on the
Rhine. Men get into Jail not because
they steal but because they did not steal
enough.
Again: Wrong fashion makes people
unnatural and untrue. It is a factory
from which has come forth more hollow
pretenses and unmeaning batteries and
hypocrisies than the Lowell mills ever
turned out shawls and garments. Fashion
is the greatest of all liars. It has made
society insincere. You know not what
to believe. When people ask you to come
you do not know whether or not they
want you to come. When they send their
regards you do not know whether it is
an expression of their heart or an ex-
ternal civility. We have learned to take
almost everything at discount. Word
Is sent mot at home' when they are
only too lazy to dress themselves. They
say, THE furnace has just gone out. -
when in truth they have had no fire in
it all winter. They apologize for the
unusual barrenness of their table, when
they never live any better. They decry
their most luxurious entertainments to
win shower of approval. They apollo
gize for their appearance, as though it
were unusual, when always at home
they look just so. They would make
you believe that some nice sketch on the
fha Of,
sit was an heirloom and once hung on
the walls of castle, and duke gave it
to their grandfather People who will
not lie about anything else will lie about
picture. On a small income we must
make the world believe that we are
aff1uent, and our life becomes cheat,
counterfeit and sham.
Few people are really natural and I'M
affected. When say this do not mean
to slur cultured manners. It is right
that we should have more admiration for
the sculptured marble than for the I'M
hewn block of the quarry. From many
circles in life fashion has driven out
vivacity and enthusiasm. A frozen dig
nifty instead floats about the room and
iceberg grinds against iceberg. You
must not laugh outright; it is vulgar.
You must smile. You must not dash
rapidly across the room, you must glide.
There is round of bows, and grins, and
batteries, and obs and abs, and sim
perings, and namby pambyism-a world
of which is not worth one good,
round, honest peal of laughter. From
such a hollow round the tortured guest
retires at the close of the evening, and
assures his host that he has enjoyed him.
self.
Thus social life has been contorted and
deformed, until. in some mountain cabin,
where rustics gather to the quilting or
the apple pairing, there is more good
cheer than in all the frescoed ice houses
of the metropolis. We want in all the
higher circles of society more warmth of
heart and naturalness of behavior, and
not SO many refrigerators.
Again: Wrong fashion is incompatible
with happiness. Those who depend for
their comfort upon the admiration of
others are subject to frequent disappoint-
ment. Somebody will criticisestheir APP
pearance, or surpass them in brilliancy,
or will receive more attention. Oh, the
Jealousy and detraction and heartburn
ings of those who move in this bewildered
maze Poor butterfiesl Bright wings
do not always bring happiness. 'sShe
that iveth in pleasure is dead while she
iveth.' The revelations of high life
that come to the challenge and the
fight are only the occasional crop
pings out of disquietudes that are, un-
derneath, like the stars of heaven for
multitude, but like the demons of the pit
for hate. The misery that will tonight
in the cellar cuddle up in the straw is
not SO utter as the princely disquietude
which stalks through splendid drawing
rooms, brooding over the Sights and of
fenses of luxurious life. The bitterness
of life seems not SO uniting when drunk
out of pewter mug, as when it pours
from the chased lips of golden chalice.
In the sharp crack of the voluptuarys
pistol, putting an end to his earthly
misery, hear the confirmation that in a
hollow, fastidious life there is no peace.
Again: Devotion to wrong fashion is
productive of physical disease mental
imbecility and spiritual whitening. APP
parel insufficient to keep out the cold and
the rain. or SO fitted upon the person
that the functions of life are re-
strained; late hours filled with excite
ment and feasting; free drafts of
wine that make one not beastly intoxi-
Gated, but only fashionably drunk; and
luxurious indolence-are the instruments
by which this unreal life pushes its dis
ciples into valetudinarianism and the
grave. Along the walks of prosperous
life death goes a-mowing - and such
harvests as are reaped! Materia Meolica
has been exhausted to find curatives for
these physiological devastations. Drop
sizes, cancers, consumptions, govt. and
almost every infrmity in all the realm
OF pathology have been the penalties
paid. To counterfeit the damage phar-
macy has gone forth with medicament,
panacea, elixir, embrocation, salve and
cataplasm.
Tonight with swollen feet upon c,lsh-
Toned ottoman, and groaning with aches
innumerable, will be the votary of lux
urious living, not half SO happy as his
groom or coal HEAVIER. Wrong fashion
Is the worlds undertaken, and drives
thousands of hearses to Greenwood and
Laurel Hill and Mount Auburn.
But. worse than that, this folly is an
intellectual depletion. This endless study
OF proprieties and etiquette, patterns and
styles, is bedwarfing to the intellect.
never knew woman or a man of ex-
treme fashion that knew much. How
behttling tho study of the cut of n coat.
or the tie of a cravat, or the wrinkle in
sleeve, or the color of ribbon! How
they are worried if something gets I'M
tied, or hangs awry, or is not nicely
adjusted! With a mind capable of
measuring the height and depth of great
subjects: able to unravel mysteries, to
walk through the universe, to soar up
into the infinity of Gods attributes
lowering perpetually over new style of
cloak! have known men reckless as TO
their character and regardless of interests
momentous and eternal, exasperated by
the shape of a vest button What Is the
matter with that woman wrnlrht mr.,