I TRUST my reader is by this time sufficiently acquainted with the
general outline of Fashionable life: it would only be accumulating
observations unnecessarily to enter further into the subject: I shall
therefore devote the present chapter to a brief investigation of the
state of happiness among a people who, it must be observed, claim to be
considered—the _happiest of their species_.
Happiness is, as moralists agree, a relative expression; and indicates
the excess of the aggregate of good over that of evil in any given
condition. The foundation of happiness therefore must be traced to the
ideas which those, upon whose condition the question turns, are
accustomed to entertain, of good and evil. So that if we wished to
ascertain the amount of happiness in a life of Fashion, we must make our
calculation out of those things, which constitute respectively good and
evil in a Fashionable estimation. I have had occasion to observe before,
that a Fashionable life is a life of sense; consequently all the sources
of happiness in such a condition must be confined to the pleasures of
sense. Now, it must be considered, that the pains of sense are at least
as numerous as its pleasures; and that, by a law of Providence subject to
very few exceptions, those who will have the one, must take their
proportion of the other with them.
This observation is abundantly confirmed by what occurs in the experience
of the parties under consideration. The pleasures which men of Fashion
derive from the gratification of their animal appetites at the table, the
gaming-house, and the brothel, have a very ample set-off in the
inconveniences which they suffer from arthritic, nervous, and a thousand
other, painful and retributive complaints. Nor are the gay and
dissipated of the other sex exempted from the same contingency of
constitutional suffering. Beside the common lot of human nature, they
have a class of evils of their own procuring; and, by excesses as
imprudent as they are immoral, they bring upon themselves a variety of
diseases, for which neither a name nor a remedy can be found. There are
those, it is true, who avoid much of this inconvenience, by mixing some
discretion with their folly, and setting some bounds to their favourite
gratifications: but then it is to be remembered, that these are
restraints which render persons of licentious minds singularly uneasy;
and they may therefore be considered as administering to pain, nearly in
proportion as they abridge indulgence.
But supposing that we were to throw these severer items out of the
calculation: there would still remain evils enough in a Fashionable
condition, to keep the scale from preponderating on the side of pleasure.
To shine in a ball-room, is, no doubt, a high satisfaction; but then to
be outshone by another, (which is just as likely to happen,) is at least
as great a mortification: to be invited to _many_ modish parties, is
really delightful; but then to know those who are invited to _more_ than
ourselves, is certainly vexatious: to find one’s-self surrounded by
people of the first Fashion, is charming; but then to be dying with heat
all the time, is something in the opposite scale; to wear a coat or a
head-dress of the newest invention, is indeed a pleasure of the highest
order; but then to see, by accident, articles of the same mode on the
back of a man-milliner, or the head of a lady’s maid, is a species of
vexation not easily endured. An opera, a play, a party, a night passed
at a dance, or at a cassino, or a faro-table, are all events, to be sure,
of the happiest occurrence; but then, to be disappointed of _one_, makes
a deeper impression on the side of pain, than to be gratified with
_three_, does on that of pleasure: and disappointments will happen, where
many objects are pursued, and where the concurrence of many instruments
is necessary to their accomplishment. A drunken coachman, a broken
pannel, a sick horse, a saucy footman, a mistaken message, a dull play,
indifferent company, a head-ach, a heart-burn, an epidemical disease, or
the dread of it, a death in the family, Sunday, Fast-day, Passion week,
and a thousand other provoking casualties, either deprive these
entertainments of their power of pleasing, or even set them wholly aside.
I should only weary my reader were I to lay before him in detail half the
catalogue of those minor distresses which embarrass the idea of a modish
life: he must however perceive, from the little which has been said, that
every pleasure has its countervailing pain; and that every sacrifice to
diversion and splendour has its correspondent chastisement in vexation
and disgrace.
Hitherto those principles have been assumed as the basis of calculation,
upon which people of Fashion have _some_ advantages in their favour; but
there is another ground upon which (to say the whole truth) it ought to
be put, and on which all the advantages are _against_ them.
Man (it is notorious) is a reflecting being; and, do what he will, he
_must_ reflect. He may choose an _habitual_ career of sense; but still
he must have, whether he seek or shun them, moments of _Reflection_.
This is I admit, extremely inconvenient; but then it is without a remedy.
My business, however, is, neither to impugn, nor to vindicate the
existence of such a principle; but to show its bearings upon the sort of
life which people of Fashion must necessarily lead. Not to enter into
particulars, what can constitute a heavier affliction, than for a man of
Fashion (or, which is the same thing, a man of the world) to be obliged
to think over again the events of his licentious career? To be
persecuted with recollecting the property he has squandered, the wine he
has drunk, the seduction he has practised, and the duels he has fought?
These things were well enough at the time; they had their humour and
their reputation, and they were not without their pleasure: but then they
were designed to be _acted_, and not _reflected_ upon. The woman of
Fashion is under the same law, and is therefore exposed to the same
mental torments. She, too, must trace back (though she would give the
world to be excused) the steps she has trodden in the enchanting walks of
dissipation. She must live over again every portion of a life which,
though too fascinating to be declined, is yet too shocking to be thought
of. Her memory, also, must be haunted with frightful scenes, which
remind her, at the expence of how much health, and property, and time,
and virtue, she has sustained the figure which made her so talked of, and
the gaieties which rendered her so happy. Now these are real
afflictions; and that _Reflection_ from which they result is, not without
reason, felt and acknowledged as the scourge of their existence, by the
ingenuous part, at least, of the Fashionable World.
Many expedients have indeed been suggested for laying this busy principle
asleep, and many plans struck out for rendering its pangs supportable;
but hitherto without success. For though it has been proposed to laugh
it away, dance it away, drink it away, or travel it away; yet not one of
these projects has answered the end: and Fashionable casuists are as far
as ever from finding out a remedy of sufficient potency, to cure, or even
abate, in any material degree, the pains of Reflection.
And here I cannot but remark, how grievously the seat of this disease
(for such it is considered) has been mistaken by those who have so
lightly undertaken to prescribe for its removal. They have manifestly
considered it as a disorder of the _nerves_; and hence all the remedies
which they have recommended, are calculated to promote, either by change
of scene, or by some other mechanical impulse, a brisker circulation of
the animal spirits. The ill success with which each has been attended,
sufficiently proclaims the fallacy upon which they all are founded. If
Reflection had been only a nervous disturbance, if it had arisen out of
any disarrangement of the _animal_ economy, some, at least, of the
Fashionable nostrums would have dispersed the complaint: whereas it is
notorious, that, under every regimen which has been tried, while the
stronger symptoms have disappeared, the disorder has remained in the
system; and neither Bath, nor Weymouth, nor Tunbridge, nor Town, has ever
effected a cure.
The plain truth is, (whatever may be insinuated to the contrary by these
_Médecins à-la-mode_,) that the disease is altogether _moral_; and,
consequently, the seat of it is not in the nerves, but in the
_Conscience_. There is, in fact, nothing new in the complaint: it is
inseparably connected with a Fashionable career; and has been more or
less the scourge of all, in every age, who have declined the duties which
they owe “to God and their inferiors.” I take it to have been a malady
of the very same description which afflicted Herod in his communication
with the Baptist, and which made Felix tremble under the reasoning of
Paul. It is not a little remarkable, that both these men of Fashion (for
such no doubt they were) fell into the error which has been condemned, in
the treatment of their disease; and each, there is reason to believe,
carried it with him to his grave.
If my reader now adverts to the particulars which have been stated, he
will be compelled to draw conclusions not a little humbling to the lofty
pretensions of a Fashionable life. In few states of society, under its
present imperfection, is happiness very high: and it might not perhaps be
easy to assign the particular condition which embraces it in the greatest
proportion. But surely after the discoveries which this discussion has
made, we run no risk in affirming, that a life of Fashion is _not_ that
condition. The lot of mankind would be wretched indeed, if those were
_the happiest of the species_, who, without exemption from the pains of
sense, are excluded from the pleasures of Reflection: and who, as the
price of enjoyments derived from the _one_, become subject to the
chastisement inflicted by _both_.