the housemaid, know better.

After awhile, having learned the trick, we launch out boldly and spend
like Indian Princes--or rather _seem_ to spend; for we know, by this
time, how to purchase the seeming with the seeming, how to buy the
appearance of wealth with the appearance of cash. And the dear old
world--Beelzebub bless it! for it is his own child, sure enough; there
is no mistaking the likeness, it has all his funny little
ways--gathers round, applauding and laughing at the lie, and sharing
in the cheat, and gloating over the thought of the blow that it knows
must sooner or later fall on us from the Thor-like hammer of Truth.

And all goes merry as a witches' frolic--until the gray morning dawns.

Truth and fact are old-fashioned and out-of-date, my friends, fit only
for the dull and vulgar to live by. Appearance, not reality, is what
the clever dog grasps at in these clever days. We spurn the
dull-brown solid earth; we build our lives and homes in the
fair-seeming rainbow-land of shadow and chimera.

To ourselves, sleeping and waking there, _behind_ the rainbow, there
is no beauty in the house; only a chill damp mist in every room, and,
over all, a haunting fear of the hour when the gilded clouds will melt
away, and let us fall--somewhat heavily, no doubt--upon the hard world
underneath.

But, there! of what matter is _our_ misery, _our_ terror? To the
stranger, our home appears fair and bright. The workers in the fields
below look up and envy us our abode of glory and delight! If _they_
think it pleasant, surely _we_ should be content. Have we not been