Sesame and Lilies by John Ruskin
page 104 of 155 (67%)
page 104 of 155 (67%)
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Bitter must be the feelings of many a French woman whose days of luxury and expensive habits are at an end, and whose bills of bygone splendour lie with a heavy weight on her conscience, if not on her purse! With us the evil has spread high and low. Everywhere have the examples given by the highest ladies in the land been followed but too successfully. Every year did dress become more extravagant, entertainments more costly, expenses of every kind more considerable. Lower and lower became the tone of society, its good breeding, its delicacy. More and more were MONDE and DEMI-MONDE associated in newspaper accounts of fashionable doings, in scandalous gossip, on racecourses, in PREMIERES REPRESENTATIONS, in imitation of each other's costumes, MOBILIERS and slang. Living beyond one's means became habitual--almost necessary--for every one to keep up with, if not to go beyond, every one else. What the result of all this has been we now see in the wreck of our prosperity, in the downfall of all that seemed brightest and highest. Deeply and fearfully impressed by what my own country has incurred and is suffering, I cannot help feeling sorrowful when I see in England signs of our besetting sins appearing also. Paint and chignons, slang and vaudevilles, knowing "Anonymas" by name, and reading doubtfully moral novels, are in themselves small offences, |
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