, 1892-03-16

WIN hdo ~ my BIOat
<~S, extent mingled in this
IT, same element of socie-
ty, has at some time
asked him Oh herself these questions,
perhaps just by way of speculation and
philosophy, or perhaps in some moment
of WEAKNESS and disgust Of life and its
complications.
Ones instructive idea of society is that
it can only exist in large communities
and can be found in its perfection only
in the few great centers of civilization
in Paris or London or Vienna or st. Pc
tersburg or New York. But In point Of
fact society exists everywhere that even
a few people are gathered together
that is to say, enough people to make
public opinion possible. One person can-
not form society, nor can two, for there
would with two be nc possibility of talk
ing about somebody else, and that is the
very marrow of society conversation.
Three persons at least must live near to-
gether, engage in the same pursuits,
covet the same things and emulate each
other in their mode of life to produce the
essential germ of society, for that germ
is rivalry. Where NJ rivalry is possible
society cannot exist.
Take for instance q keen business
man, a soldier, a philosopher, a laborer
and a domestic oma of limited men
tai capacities; they would not constitute
society II they lived alone on a desolate
island, for there could be no rivalry;
not one of them would feel the least am
bition to excel the other, for not one
would understand or aspire to eminence
- slN 1901 ~ H. -
But take a little country town, nay, take
the smallest village, and you at once get
society, for you have rivalry, emulation,
envy and c~ovetousness; also you have q
certain amount of friendly feeling, Of de-
sire for the good Of others and of a SYM
pathetic interest in their success or mis-
fortune. For all three elements enter
into society, and If you say the last three
contradict and neutralize the first four,
| respond that they are but three to
four, and that as a general thing the ma
lority governs, not only in u republic,
but in the kingdoms and empires Of the
earth, 30 far at least as society is to DO
considered.
Besides, 1t Is not necessary to try to
make the laws of society consistent or
harmonious or commonsensical, for they
are not 80 by nature, never have been
and new will be.
In the little village, the wife Of the
minister, the doctor and the lawyer rep
resent the Four Hundred, which have
beer declared to comprise all the society
folk Of New York; to these three pro-
f%essional ladies may be Joined the wife
of the shopkeeper and perhaps the mill
A. g., -.- ---
among the farmers. To this inner cir
Gle do all the women of the place aspire,
and the question as to who does or does
not revolve within it as a sort of second
AIRY planet is the source of unending
discussion, assertion, denial and simula-
ton.
Miss Brown is going to have some
folks to tea" says the butchers wife to
the blacksmith's wife. 81 suppose you're
a-goingY"
"Oh, l don't know" replies Mrs. Cy-
clops, who would give her ears to go and
hasn't been invited. 81 expect Miss
Browns too mad to ask me, for l haven't
been to call at the parsonage for q month
of Sundays. Be you goingT"
dunno yet. l some expect to go
down to the city that day" And the
two ladies separate, each to make merry
in her domestic circle over the vain pre-
lenses and aspirations of the other.
Perhaps you loftily say hat you know
nothing about country villages or the
habits and feelings of the wives of
butchers and blacksmiths; but is not
this little sketch n that you can dupli-
cate in your own circle of society what
ever that may be?
Mrs. V. or Mrs. A. is to give an en-
tertainment. OF course she asks the
400 who are on her regular visiting list,
but there are 400 or 500 more, not exact
ly on the visiting list, but who still have
u certain acquaintance with Mrs v. or
Mrs. A.; have met her at some sum-
mer hotel, have crossed the ocean in her
company or have been presented to her
notice by some friend. She bows to them
in the park, and if they stand square in
her path at some third persons reception
she graciously replies to their anxious
and deferential little proffer of remark
or salutation; but does all this make
them so far acquainted that they may
hope for an invitation to this grand an
tertainment? Does it at any rate en-
title them to speak to their friends as If
there was a possibility of their going IL
they see fit TO do 80? And when they
meet another person very similarly stu
ated with regard to the leaders of the
Four Hundred, does not their little con-
~versation bear a striking resemblance to
hat of the butchers wife and the black
smiths wife discussing the tea to be
given by the parsons wife?
Diogenes placed the height Of human
happiness in content with what one had.
A Rem ark ,bls Cure Of Rasu natism.