These dissipations extinguish all love of usefulness. How could you
expect one to be interested in the alleviations of the world's misery,
while there is a question to be decided about the size of a glove
or the shade of a pongee? How many of these men and women of the
ball-room visit the poor, or help dress the wounds of a returned
soldier in the hospital? When did the world ever see a perpetual
dancer distributing tracts? Such persons are turned in upon
themselves. And it is very poor pasture!
This gilded sphere is utterly bedwarfing to intellect and soul. This
constant study of little things; this harassing anxiety about
dress; this talk of fashionable infinitesimals; this shoe-pinched,
hair-frizzled, fringe-spattered group--that simper and look askance
at the mirrors and wonder, with infinity of interest, "how that one
geranium leaf does look;" this shrivelling up of man's moral dignity,
until it is no more observable with the naked eye; this taking of a
woman's heart, that God meant should be filled with all amenities,
and compressing it until all the fragrance, and simplicity, and
artlessness are squeezed out of it; this inquisition of a small shoe;
this agony of tight lacing; this wrapping up of mind and heart in
a ruffle; this tumbling down of a soul that God meant for great
upliftings!
I prophesy the spiritual ruin of all participators in this rivalry.
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