The weekly register. [volume] (Point Pleasant, Va. [W. Va.]) 1862-1909, 1895-07-10
AMERICAN ExTRAYAGANCE.
Unfayorably ContraSted With the
Economy or Europeans.

any pan VI SShSAhO bhaD AO4ulhSo
years to perfect, such as mapping
out his life and saying. 81 am now
grown and educated; in five years /
will do this, in FIVE more that, in
ten more something else" as the
European does. He does not say,
ain ten years l shall have paid all
my fathers debts; shall then mar
ry; in ten moro l shall have laid
by for my wife and children five,
ten, twenty, fffty,a hundred thous-
and dollars, shall have bought this
or that place for myself, this or that
business for my son. The Ameri-
cans mind is so full of large and
splendid possibilities that he comes
to regard them as probabilities and
to scorn the day of small things, the
patient process and careful econo-
mics by which important results are
more often achieved than in any
other way. Every American ex-
poets to succeed, every European
looks to it that he shall not fall ig
ANONYMOUSLY in the race of life He
handicaps himself, he will give SO
much time, youth, money, to win
such and such result. He will not
marry too young or foolishly, know
ing that ruin a deux is all that
awaits him. He takes long views,
and makes careful plans, not leav-
ing much to chance or accident, un-
like the American, who is always
waiting. Micawber- wise, for the
splendid chance that is to make his
fortune, the something to turn up"
that is to revolutionize all his flu
ture, the turn in the tide that is to
lead on to victory-though as often
as not it strands him on the beach
of adversely, old age, and failure.
But this is not a doctrine that
finds favor with our people; not a
bit of it. Mrs. Jones, who has 1900
a year, must dress like Mrs. Brown
who has a hundred thousand. Mrs
Brown goes to the seaside and stops
at an expensive hotel, therefore Mrs.
Jones makes her husbands life
burden to him until he takes rooms
for her on the same floor of the very
same house. Outside of New Eng
land and the South, it is a refresh.
ing rarity to etany human being
who gives as the only true, bona
fide reason for not doing anything,
81 cant afford it," with no sort of
false shame or false humility.
The people with "mutton broth
pockets and turtle soup tastes" who
spend their lives in refusing to be
small peas or potatoes with all their
might, and insisting upon being
large golden pumpkins with all
their soul, exist everywhere, of
course, but they are as plentiful as
blackberries with us, and growing
more numerous every day. Million
aires set the the pace, and all the
frogs begin forthwith to convert
themselves into oxen, and be, as
they call it "swells," though many
of them burst in the effort, so great
are their social sensitiveness, their
determination to keep up with the
procession, their horror of not be
ing supposed to be in or able to
keep up with this or their set, their
intense social uneasiness and ambi-
ton. a perpetual braying of brass
bands and burning of lime lights is
their idea of society. They forget
Lowell's delightful aphorism that
"good society would be charming if
it deserved either the noun or the
adjective"
LIDO not say expenditure. Rich
Europeans put as much money and
more than we do in certain things
pictures, books, curios, antiques,
stained glass, thorough bred horses
pampered menials, wines, "collec-
tions" of all sorts, establishments,
and great houses. The show places,
the great Libraries, the winner of
the Derby and Prix de Paris, the
armies of powdered funkies, the
galleries of paintings and statuary,
the cellars of fine wines, the collec-
tions of fans, laces, old books, old
shoes, old silver, old coins, old ar
NOR, musical instruments, snuff
boxes, pipes, sea-weed, butterflies,
drinking fagons, costumes of all
times and nations-all these show
that the European is not niggardly,
but spends his money with liberali-
ty and intelligence. And some
Americans do the samoan ever
increasing number of them, in fact.
But, as rule, the Americans wastes
as much as he spends wisely, and
the European never does this. lie
understands exactly how each sonI