And while each has his or her own exclusive circle, which all of supposed inferior rank are precluded from entering, they are at the same time struggling to pass over the line of social demarcation which has been drawn by those above them. They are eager to overleap it, and thus gain admission into a circle still more exclusive than their own.
There is also a desperate scramble for front places, and many are the mean shifts employed to gain them. We must possess the homage of society! And for this purpose we must be rich, or at least seem to be so. Hence the struggles after style—the efforts made to put on the appearances of wealth—the dash, the glitter, and the show of middle and upper class life;—and hence, too, the motley train of palled and vitiated tastes—of shrunken hearts and stunted intellects—of folly, frivolity, and madness.
One of the most demoralizing practices of modern refinement is the "large party" system. People cram their houses with respectable mobs; thus conforming to a ridiculous custom. Rousseau, with all his aberrations of mind, said, "I had rather have my house too small for a day, than too large for a twelvemonth." Fashion exactly reverses the maxim; and domestic mischief is often begun with a large dwelling and suitable accommodations. The misfortune consists in this,—that we never look below our level for an example, but always above it.
It is not so much, however, in the mere appearances kept up, as in the means taken to keep them up, that the fruitful cause of immorality is to be found. A man having assumed a class status, runs all risks to keep it up. It is thought to be a descent in the world, to abridge oneself of a superfluity. The seeming-rich man, who drives his close carriage and drinks champagne, will not tolerate a descent to a gig and plain beer; and the respectable man, who keeps his gig, would think it a degradation to have to travel afoot or in a 'bus, between his country house and his town office. They will descend to immorality rather than descend in apparent rank; they will yield to dishonesty rather than yield up the mock applause and hollow respect of that big fool, "the world."
Everybody can call to mind hundreds of cases of men—"respectable men"—who, from one extravagance have gone on to another—wantonly squandering wealth which was not theirs—in order to keep up a worldly reputation, and cut a figure before their admiring fellows;—all ending in a sudden smash, a frightful downfall, an utter bankruptcy—to the ruin, perhaps, of thousands. They have finished up with paying a respectable dividend of sixpence in the pound! Indeed it is not too much to say, that five-sixths of the fraud and swindling that disgrace commercial transactions, have had their origin in the diseased morality of "keeping up appearances."
To be "respectable," in the false sense of the word,—what is not sacrificed? Peace, honesty, truth, virtue,—all to keep up appearances. We must cheat, and scrub, and deceive, and defraud, that "the world" may not see behind our mask! We must torment and enslave ourselves, because we must extort "the world's" applause, or at least obtain "the world's" good opinion!
How often is suicide traceable to this false sentiment! Vain men will give up their lives, rather than their class notions of respectability. They will cut the thread of existence, rather than cut fashionable life. Very few suicides are committed from real want. "We never hear," says Joel Barlow, "of a man committing suicide for want of a loaf of bread, but it is often done for want of a coach."
Of this mean and miserable spirit of class and caste, women are the especial victims. They are generally brought up with false notions of life, and are taught to estimate men and things rather by their external appearances than by their intrinsic worth. Their education is conducted mainly with the view of pleasing and attracting the admiration of others, rather than of improving and developing their qualities of mind and heart. They are imbued with notions of exclusiveness, fashion, and gentility. A respectable position in society is held up to them as the mark to be aimed at. To be criminal or vicious is virtually represented to them as far less horrible than to be "vulgar." Immured within the bastile of exclusivism, woman is held captive to all the paltry shifts and expediencies of convention, fashion, gentility, and so forth. The genuine benevolence of her nature is perverted; her heart becomes contracted; and the very highest sources of happiness—those which consist in a kindly sympathy with humanity in all ranks of life—are as a well shut up and a fountain sealed.
Is it not a fact, that in what is called "fashionable society," a fine outside appearance is regarded almost in the light of a virtue?—that to be rich, or to have the appearance of riches, is esteemed as a merit of a high order;—whereas, to be poor, or to seem so, ranks as something like an unpardonable offence? Nay, such is the heartlessness of this class spirit, that a young woman, belonging to the better class, who, by misfortune or family reverses, has been thrown upon her own resources, and who endeavours, by her own honest hands, to earn her honest bread, immediately loses caste, and is virtually expelled from "respectable" society. The resolution to be independent—the most invigorating resolution which can take possession of the human mind—is scouted in such circles as a degrading thing; and those who have been brought up within the influence of fashion, will submit to the most severe privations, rather than submit to the loss of their class and caste respectability!
Thus brought up, it is no wonder that woman has been the co-partner with man in upholding the general extravagance of the age. There never was such a rage for dress and finery amongst English women as there is now. It rivals the corrupt and debauched age of Louis XV. of France. A delirium of fashion exists. Women are ranked by what they wear, not by what they are. Extravagance of dress, and almost indecency of dress, has taken the place of simple womanly beauty. Wordsworth once described the "perfect woman nobly planned." Where will you find the perfect woman now? Not in the parti-coloured, over-dressed creature—the thing of shreds and patches—with false hair, false colour, false eyebrows, false everything. "Some of nature's journeymen have made them, and not made them well, they imitate humanity so abominably."