The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1893-01-08

| be Stunned, but enjoyed. 1t is one OF the
best products of what is called civilization,
and should be duly appreciated by all those
who can command it. But feeding should
not occupy the exaggerated amount Of time
which is given to it in society nor cost the
enormous amount Of money which is spent
on it.
Luxury IN itself is a most excellent thing,
aud / would fam see it moIe general, as
| the luxury OF the bath was in imperial
| Rome open to one aud all. with the water
streaming over the shining silver and snowy
/ marbles and the beauty of porphyry and
/ jade and agate cleaning under the silken
| awning alike the plebeiau and patrician. 1t
! 10 not for its luxury for a moment that
would rebuke the modern world, but for its
ugly habits, lis ugly clothes. its ugly
| hurry-scurry, whereby IL SO grossly dis
! figures, and through which it scarcely even
perceivss or enjoys, the agreeably things
around IL.
The great malady Of the age is the aoso-
lutte inability to support solitude or to en-
dure silence.
Statesmanship is obscured in babbling
speech; art and literature are represented by
mere hurried Impressions snatched from un-
willingly accorded moments of a detested
isolation; life is lived in a throng in a rush,
| in a gallop. The day was lost to Titus if it
did not record q good action; the day is lost
to the modern man and woman unless it be
spent in q mob. The horror of being alone
| amounts in our time to disease. To be
left without anybody else to amuse it fills
| the modern mind with terror.
| There is nothing more costly than this
hatred OF ones own company than this lack
Of resources and occupations independent of
other persons. What ruins niuety-nine
households out Of hundred is the expense
Of continual visiting and inviting. Every
| body detests enter tanning, but as they all
know that they must receive to be received
! and they cannot bring themselves 20 support
solitude, people ruin themselves in enter
| tainmenL
! There is a stimulant and drug, as have
i said, in the curious mixture of excitement
and ennui, of animation and fatigue, pro-
duced by society, and without this mixture
the man and woman of the world cannot
exist; and to f1Dd the purchase money fos
| this drug is what impoverishes them and
makes them indifferent to their own degra-
dalton, and sends their beautiful old woods
and old books and old pictures to the shame
full uproar of the sale rooms.
Drink and gambling lin varied forms, it is
true, but in essence always the same) are
the staple delights of modern life, whether
| in the rude western shanty of the NAVY,
the miner and the digger, or in the luxurious
card rooms of the clubs and the country
houses of the older world. We have even
turned all the rest of creation into living
uN'6 lOE duu bUo uOTh6 LIOkS OF RulAOpS,
the dog Is fastened TO the show bench, the
pigeon flies from the trap. even the ret
fights the terrier that our fevered pulses
may beat still quicker in the unholy agita-
| ton of gamester's greed.
There is little except music which is
beautiful in the psgeantries of this day. A
ball is still pretty sight il it takes place in
a great house, and if not too many people
have beel invited But except this, and
this only in q great house, all entertain
ments are uusightly. No decoration of a
dinner table. no gold plate and orchid8e aud
electric light and old china can make even
tolerabe artistically speaking, the sight of
men aud women sitting bolt upright close
together taking their soup around it. A
full concert room. lecture room, church, al {
a hldeOus sight. A garden party in fair
weather and fine grounds alone has a
certain grace and charm. bur garden
parties, like all other modern spec
tacles, are spoiled by the attire OF the men,
the most frightful, grotesque and disgrace
full male costume which the world has ever
seen. When the archaologists of the future
dig up one of our bronze statues 10 trousers
they will have no need to go further for
evidence of the inaptitude and idiocy of the
age. What our historians call the dark ages
had costumes alike for the villein and tbs
seigneur. adapted to their needs serviceable
picturesque and comely: this age alone
| WHICH VhuutS 1L5 Superiority. mas u ClOtDlne
for its men which is at once utterly un
slightly, unhealthy, and so constructed that
all the bodily beauty OF an Apollo or ar
Achilles would be obscured. caricAtured
and deformed by it.
To a society which had any true percep.
ton of beauty, grace or elegance the
masher would be impossible; the shoulder
handshake, the tall hat the eternal cigar.
ette the stiff collar, the dead birds on the
| hall dracsaa and hnDDafa ha irip n
struggles of the sexes on the tennis ground
and q thousand other similar things would
not be for a moment endured. To a society
which had any high standard Of refinement
such entertainments as are appropriately
called "crushes' would be iusupporta
the presence aud the speeches OF women on
public platforms would be- iutolerabie; all
the enormities Of the race course would be
abhorreut; its fine ladies would no more
wear dead humming birds upon their go u ns
than they would wear the entrails of dead
cats: its fine gentlemen would no more
gather together to murder handled pheas>
ants than they would shoot kittens or cana
ries; to a truly elegant society everything
barbarous, grotesuue and ungraceful would
be impossible.
The royal personages are the first offenders
aud the worst examples. They are never
still sThey are never content. They are
incessantly discovering pretexts for con-
veyIng their royal pers1ns here and there,
to and fro. in ceaseless, useless. costly and
foolish journeys.
Every event IN their lives is a cause or an
excuse for their indulgence in the peregrin-
! oTdnte; if they are well, they want change
of scene; il they are ill, they want chaDg &c
of air; il they suffer bereavement, moth
ing can console them except some agreeable
foreign strand; and the deaths, births and
marriages of their innumerable relations
! furnish them with continual and convenient
reasons for incessant gyraions. In all these
multiplied and endless shiftings of place and
person the photographs fly about in showers
aud the gold and silver offerings are rendered
| in return on Bonded knees.
| IL must be confessed that royalty con-
firms and keeps no many usages and obli-
| cations of society which are absurd and un-
pleasant. and without royal support would
die natural death.
The most vulgar form Of salutation, the
shake hands, has been adopted aud general
lied by princes, until 1t is now usual in
countries where it was unknown In the be-
| ginning of the century. Nothing can be
more ludicrous and uugraceful or more dis
agreeable, than the 'pump-handling, ="
which is common in all ranks of society
and which great personages might easily
have abolished altogether. They think it
makes them popular, aud so they resort TO
it on every suitable and unsuitable occa-
| sion. There can lie no possible reason why