Rensselaer Republican, Volume 13, Number 40, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 23 June 1881 — A Modern Eyil. [ARTICLE]

A Modern Eyil.

David Swing: Wine is not half so dangerous as lace or furniture. When a taste or fondness of display comes in then the love of the beautiful has gone mad; and the fashionable lady is no longer a student of God’s guts and man’s art; she has become an unstrung harp. Taste has become a passion, and instead of lighting the eye it consumes the soul’s integrity. Whiles taste flows within lawful banks it can afford to wait for honorable means for its gratification to come. The true, lofty heart is longsuffering, but when taste becomes a madness then money will come, even if it must be boughr bv the sale of morality. Great as are the evils which result from the use of strong drink, yet, could we see already the fountains of human ills, we should discover that in the power to injure society, the thirst for ardent spirits has been surpassed of late by the longing for elegant homes and elegant furniture, ana what are called the “appointments” in the fashionable tongu°. It is quite probable that the “appointments” of former times, a decanter and glass, injured the world less profoundly;' for intemperance has often left the conscience and all the moral sentiments noble, but the love of display seems always to drag the mind ana soul into ruin, leaving no sentiment in full vigor except vanity. At least this is true, that intemperance is a known, confessed evil, and men have learned to be on guard, whereas this passion for display is a half concealed enemy, hiding behind such saints as taste and beauty. Gs the hundreds of bases of fraud that a year or a month reveals, not a tenth of them spring from the old passions that once were wont to devastate society, but from a new madness the frauds spring—a hunger for home magnificence. The Romen Republic was comp died once to pass a law f >rbidding the Consuls from going into procession with white horses to their cars. The empire had done enough of that. The people had seen the taxlists and the wars and the bribes, thct came from splendor, -and they ordained by law that their republic should make an experiment in simplicity. But the law was vain. The barbarian love of display was all through and through the people. To gratifv their taste they would sack any city, and strip the rings from the dying women or gold from the altars of the gods. When Rome died it was full of tapestry and furniture and marbles, but empty of soul. No man or woman of mind and virtue had trodden its elegant parlors for a hundred years. When nigh style comes in at the door, reason flys out of the window.