No better picture could be found of the "world" of to-day, a
perpetual Pele Mele, where such advantages only are conceded as we
have been sufficiently enterprising to obtain, and are strong or
clever enough to keep - a constant competition, a daily
steeplechase, favorable to daring spirits and personal initiative
but with the defect of keeping frail humanity ever on the qui vive.

Philosophers tell us, that we should seek happiness only in the
calm of our own minds, not allowing external conditions or the
opinions of others to influence our ways. This lofty detachment
from environment is achieved by very few. Indeed, the philosophers
themselves (who may be said to have invented the art of "posing")
were generally as vain as peacocks, profoundly pre-occupied with
the verdict of their contemporaries and their position as regards
posterity.

Man is born gregarious and remains all his life a herding animal.
As one keen observer has written, "So great is man's horror of
being alone that he will seek the society of those he neither likes
nor respects sooner than be left to his own." The laws and
conventions that govern men's intercourse have, therefore, formed a
tempting subject for the writers of all ages. Some have labored
hoping to reform their generation, others have written to offer
solutions for life's many problems.

Beaumarchais, whose penetrating wit left few subjects untouched,
makes his Figaro put the subject aside with "Je me presse de rire
de tout, de peur d'etre oblige d'en pleurer."