The Seattle post-intelligencer. [volume] (Seattle, Wash. Terr. [Wash.]) 1888-1914, 1890-12-28

A PESSIMIsTIC ORACLE.


In st. Louis, Mo-, on Sunday, December
21st, 1.-THE Ethics of Luxury" was the sub
ject of lecture before the st. Louis So
ciety for Ethical Culture. In the far west
the new, sane, practical and progressive
west-there is but one word, ''hyfalutin,"
which would be considered applicable alike
to the title of the society and the lecture.
And the lecture. both in premises and con-
illusions, was as full of false assumptions
and wild vagaries as was late counter
tribute of Grover Cleveland to plainness,
cheapness and a disregard for the refine
ments of advanced and advancing civiliza-
ton.
''Luxuries," says the st. Louis lecturer,
shave always been supposed to be peculi-
arly dangerous to character" 1t would
be interesting to know the era in which
and the class of people among whom this
supposition has actually prevailed. "Great
teachers" he adds, shave always been
fond of warning the people against lux
uries." This is only true as to great lead
ers" of the Cleveland type, who while
greedily availing themselves of every lux
ury within their reach, talk thus for the
editcation of the gallery GODS"
But this lecturer had only stated these
false premises in order to combat them.
He had set up the man of straw only to be
knocked down or burnt as an effigy He
believes in luxurious tastes and the enjoy
ment of Injuries. THE more of beauty
and charms mans taste can respond to-
says he, ''the more he is of a man." And
adds, I'm certain respect, the greater our
dependence on the external world, the
larger is our inward being" All of which
is true, though somewhat pedanticalIy ex-
pressed.
But his good sense fails him when he
comes to the application: SIN coming
ages" says he, ''when people come to study
the past for what it has contributed to the
art ideals of the future, they will pay but
little attention to the nineteenth century,
but go back to the medieval epoch or to
antiquity. They viii describe how, with
the enormous means at our command, we
wasted our opportunity. They will point
out our mistake in treating luxuries as
mere external objects, to be looked at. in
stead of thinking of them in the way earlier
people did, as an essential element in edu-
eating and refining the inner life and char
acter."
All of which is utter bosh. If the people
of century or of ten centuries hence shall
have progressed in average intelligence,
culture, refinement, accomplishment and
in luxurious tastes and habits in equal
ratio as have the people of the nineteenth
century, and it were left to them to blot
ont the achievements and advancement of
this or all preceding centuries, there can
be no manner of doubt that the sensible
and candid among them would let the
latter rather than the nineteenth century
be consigned TO oblivion.
There has been no age of the world
which will bear comparison with this in
| the general or III the higher average OF
luxurious tastes and living. There are
working mechanics in the United States
today, dependent on their daily toll for
| their maintenance. who, with their fami
| lies, are better housed. better clad. better
! fed, more rehned in manners and speecb
way, than were the nobility of England a
/ thousand or even five hundred years ago.
| Greece, it is true, excelled IN the finer
| types of architecture and in sculpture. and
Italy in the latter and IN painting, but in
| general culture and refinement. and in
multiplicity of adjuncts to luxurious Hv
ing, either would suffer by comparison
with any of the more advanced peoples of
this country. And as to woman. in point
| of intellectual development, refined tastes
and accomplishments, she of today is to
her predecessor in any period of the past,
| whether il be one hundred or five thou-
| sand years agone, as the MONDAY sun to a
| farthing dip. Let Us hope that the future
investigators wiz be equal to and capable
] OF approaching their predecessors of the
! nineteenth century more fully and fairly
| than did the st. Louis ediher OF that city,s
| Society of Ethical Cultured
/
The Russian prosecutions have called forth