the faintest idea of the misery which a little elegant intoxication
has produced in scores of families that you know, you would never
insinuate again that a little excitement from wine is an agreeable
thing. There's your friend Mrs. Croesus (he thinks she's my friend,
because we call each other 'dear'!); she is delighted to be a
fashionable woman, and to be described as the 'peerless and
accomplished Mrs. Croesus' in letters from the Watering-places to the
Herald; but I tell you, if anything of the woman or the mother is left
in the fashionable Mrs. Croesus, I could wring her heart as it never
was wrung--and never shall be by me--by showing her the places that
young Timon Croesus haunts, the people with whom he associates and the
drunkenness, gambling, and worse dissipations of which he is guilty.

"Timon Croesus is eighteen or nineteen, or, perhaps, twenty years old;
and Polly, I tell you, he is actually _blase_, worn out with
dissipation, the companion of blacklegs, the chevalier of Cyprians,
tipsy every night, and haggard every morning. Timon Croesus is the
puny caricature of a man, mentally, morally, and physically. He gets
'elegantly intoxicated' at your parties; he goes off to sup with
Gauche Boosey; you and Mrs. Croesus think them young men of
spirit,--it is an exhilarating case of sowing wildcats, you
fancy,--and, when, at twenty-five, Timon Croesus stands ruined in the
world, without aims or capacities, without the esteem of a single man
or his own self-respect--youth, health, hope, and energy, all gone
forever--then you and your dear Mrs. Croesus will probably wonder at
the horrible harvest. Mrs. Potiphar, ask the Rev. Cream Cheese to omit
his sermon upon the maidenhood of Lot's wife, and preach from this
text: 'They that sow the wind shall reap the whirlwind.' Good heavens!
Polly, fancy our Fred growing up to such a life! I'd rather bury him
to-morrow!"