Daily camera., 1897-05-11
CULPABLE LUXURY,
A Question Of the Relative Impor-
tance Of Things.
When the Love of Material Pleasure
Interferes with Intellectual
Growth the Community
Suffers.

The whole question as to what consti-
tutes culpable luxury is a question of
the relative importance of different
things. We can accomplish in our short
lives paratively little. We can en-
Joy but limited number of the pleas
ures and can satisfy but a limited num-
Der of ambitions. What pleasures shall
we choose? What ambitions shall we
achieve? The LABOR force and the ma
terial capital of the community is at
all times limited amount. Into what
channels shall it be directed? When
The rational individual puts these ques.
tions clearly before his mind he will
have no difficulty in answering for him
self the moral question of what is cuIp-
able luxury.
To begin with, luxury is culpable
when it is esthetically bad; if it does
not add to the highest enjoyments Of
mankind, II N the long run it does not
increase the sum of beauty and refine
mept and of general cultivation in the
community. In the next place, any
luxury is culpable if it makes excessive
drains upon the capital and industrial
resources of society. Again, any lux
ury is culpabIe which leads men and
women to ignore or neglect those great
opportunities which are everywhere to-
day presenting themselves to men of
wealth to add to the sum of the com
forts and conveniences and enjoyments
of the general public. Does anyone sup
pose that as yet New York city has
been made as cleanly, as wholesome
place CT residence for its population
as it may be made? Does anyone sup
pose that we have as many or as good
and well-equipped school buildings as
we need? Does anyone suppose that
we are paying our teachers the salaries
that will command the sort of ability,
character and training which should be
applied to the instruction and neral
development of the children of this
community? Does anyone suppose that
we have as yet developed the possibil-
tiles of common pleasure and of public
taste in esthetic matters? Are OUT art
galleries and libraries all that we can
wish? Are our parks beyond improve
ment? So long as these opportunities
for the expenditure of wealth remain
as large as they are to-day, the ques-
ton surely may be raised whether it is
wise and right TO devote enormous
sums to the pleasure of an hour.
Finally, any luxury is culpable if it
so far fixes the attention of the public
upon the material pleasures of life that
no moral energy remains for the dis
charge of the duties of the citizen. Be
yond any doubt we are to-day witness
ing the decay, though not perhaps the
permanent decay, of republican institu-
tutions. No man IN mis- right mind can
deny this assertion. Corruption rules
Gf ignorance does not rule) in the leg
islatures, in high and low places of
and in all the relation of
law to industry. If love of those things
which merely minister to pleasure has
gone so far that we cannot forget the
pursuit of enjoyment long enough to
enter into public interests, the luxury
has become culpable.
But luxury itself-the enjoyment and
cultivation of comfort, or refinement
and of beauty-needs no justification.
1t is good and right. The old Floren-
tine painter, whose life was, perhaps,
not beyond reproach, at any rate saw
a great truth when he affirmed that:
'If you get simple beauty and naught else,
You get about the best thing God invents."
N. Y. independent.