Who tries to talk with pompous air,
And saturates with dye her hair,
To gratify her daughters fair?
My mother
Who snubs our neighbor Mrs. Bell,
In poorer days we knew so well,
And tales of woe did often tell?
My mother
Who calls at Ridleau and all round,
Where rank and titles do abound,
And boasts of cousins newly found?
My mother
Who fears to bow to poorer kin,
For fear her daughters will begin
To growl and scold as though 'twere sin!
My mother.
I give the intelligent reader ten minutes to pause and moralize after digestion.
I anticipate the look of stupid wonder that must necessarily envelope the face. If there is so much in individual influence in the lower circle, what can one expect from the multitude that must submit to a thousand other decrees coming imperatively from the infallible (?) lips of society herself? How can we do otherwise than substitute for truth and simplicity, deception and affectation? What else can we do but fail to recognise one another in the characters we are forced to assume? Is it surprising that good and wise men from their corners of seclusion call the world degenerate, and wonder at the persistent wrong-doing of those who are the work of such merciful hands? Strange to say, most of us know, or pretend to know, that life is all deception; that the world itself, and those who belong to it are essentially, almost necessarily, selfish; that the goodness and charity which circulate at rare intervals are only the superfluidities of comfort, proceeding from no generous impulse whatever. It is not dealt out at the sacrifice of a crust of bread. It is given so that it may not be left.
Oh, the weakness of humanity after nineteen centuries of fortification!
Oh, the despicable degradation of a race conceived in an Eternal Mind,
created by an Infinite Hand, redeemed by the voluntary sacrifice of a
God, and sanctified by the Spirit that pervades the universe!
Knowing this, realizing this, as most of us do, why do we not make a move towards independence? Not the independence of the State, that gratifies the paltry ambition of thousands, not that social independence whose meaning has of late been so shamefully misapplied, not even the individual independence that satisfies many. These are but names. I mean that independence that leaves one unfettered by one's self, that makes one victor over one's own evil tendencies and impulses—for man has no enemy so cunning as himself. If he cannot conquer his own inclinations to error, how is he going to subdue them in others?
If we are slaves, mentally and morally to our sensual selves—if we raise the material element above the spiritual within us, we then lose the right of opinion on good or evil, for a man that is passion's slave is the mouth-piece of evil, and an active agent of the enemy of mankind! If we open our volumes of literature, every page bears a reflection of some kind on these things.
For instance, see what a great writer says, speaking of the deception in life: