Extravagance

The Anglo-Saxon race is inherently extravagant. The lord and leader of

the civilized world, it clothes itself in purple and fine linen, and

lives sumptuously every day, as a prerogative of its supremacy.

This trait is a very early one, and the barbaric extravagance of "The

Field of the Cloth of Gold" only typified that passion of the race for

splendid apparel and accessories which in our day has reached a point

of general and prodigal pomp and ostentation.

No other highly civilized nations have this taste for personal

parade and luxurious living to the same extent. The French, who

enjoy a reputation for all that is pretty and elegant, are really

parsimonious, and it is as natural for a Frenchman to hoard his

money as it is for a dog to bury his bone, while a Dutchman or a

German can grow rich on a salary which keeps an American always

scrambling on the verge of bankruptcy.

Some time ago Lord Derby said: "Englishmen are the most extravagant

race in the world, or, at least, only surpassed by the Americans." And

the "surpassing" in this direction is so evident to any one familiar

with the two countries that it requires no demonstration,--an American

household, even in the middle classes, being a model school for

throwing away the most money for the least possible returns.

American women have a reputation for lavish expenditure that is

world-wide, but they are not more extravagant than American men. If

one spends money on beautiful toilets and splendidly dreary

entertainments, the other flings it away on the turf, on cards or

billiards, or in masculine prodigalities still more objectionable. In

most fashionable houses the husband and wife are equally extravagant,

and the candle blazes away at both ends.

To foreigners, the most noticeable extravagance of Americans is in the

matter of flowers. Winter or summer, women of very modest means must

have flowers for their girdle. They will pay fifty cents for a rose or

two when half-dollars are by no means plentiful, and it is such a

pretty womanly taste that no man has the heart to grumble at it; only,

if the women themselves would add up the amount of money spent in this

transitory luxury, say during three months, they would be astonished

at their own thoughtlessness.

For of all pleasures flower-buying is the most evanescent; before the

day is over the fading buds are cast into the refuse cart, and the

money might just as well have been cast into the street.

As for the amount spent in floral displays at weddings, funerals,

theatres, balls, and dinners, it must be presumed that people who thus

waste hundreds of dollars on articles that are useless in a few hours

have the hundreds of dollars to throw away, and that they enjoy the

pastime of making floral ducks and drakes with their money. But if

they do not enjoy it, then why do they not imitate the economy of Beau

Brummel, who, when compelled by his debts to make some sacrifice of

luxuries, resolved to begin retrenchment by curtailing the rose water

for his bath?

Large floral outlays are just as fantastic an extravagance, for though

flowers in moderation are beautiful, in excess they are vulgar, and

even disagreeable. The Greeks, who made no mistakes about beauty and

fitness, contented themselves with a garland and a rose for their wine

cup. They would never have danced and feasted and wedded themselves in

a charnel-house of dying flowers.

Our dressing and dining is done on the same immense scale. Lucullus

might preside at our feasts, and queens envy the jewels and costumes

of our women. Perhaps the size of the country and its transcendent

possibilities in every direction instinctively incite those who have

the means to lavishness of outlay. People who live under bright high

skies, and whose horizons are wide and far-reaching, imbibe a

largeness of expression which is not satisfied with mere words; and if

we look at our extravagance in this way, we may regard it as a

national trait, developed from our natural position and advantages.

Of course, it is easy to say that Americans are lavish because, as Dr.

Watts puts it, "it is their nature to" be, but the real reason for the

overgrown luxury of the last two or three decades is to be found in

the rapid increase of the vulgar rich, the very last class worthy of

our imitation. Are not the absurd blunders of the poor man who strikes

oil a common subject for witticisms and stories?

Profuse display will probably be the only social grace the newly rich

can dispense. So, then, if wealth increases more rapidly than

culture, it is sure, in the very nature of things, to be squandered

ostentatiously; for the men whose minds are in a stunted state, being

fit for nothing else, will throw their money away on cards or horses

or any other fashionable form of dissipation; and the women in the

same mental incompleteness, knowing nothing but how to dress and

dance, when they have wealth thrust upon them will be able to find no

better use for it than to dress and dance all the more conspicuously.

This senseless love of display, once inaugurated in a city set or in a

small town, is apt to take the lead: first, because all the snobs will

cater to it; second, because sensible people know that they cannot

start a reform movement without making themselves unpopular, and going

to a great deal of trouble and expense.

For, however extravagant the machinery of society is, it has the

enormous advantage of being there, and few people can afford to live

against it. For to do as every one else does, and to go with the

stream, is much easier than to set good examples that no one wants to

follow. Indeed it takes a tremendous exercise of pluck, thought,

trouble, time, and energy to reduce an establishment that has been an

extravagant one to a more economical footing.

The justification of private extravagant expenditure is found in the

necessity of a class who will have leisure to encourage the

intellectual tastes and ambitions of the nation. And this end might be

accomplished if only matters could be so arranged that a shower of

gold should descend on the right people in the right place at the

right time.

But wealth is no more to the worthy than the race is to the strong,

and so it often finds outlets for dispersion for which there is no

justification, and whose sole object is that sensual life pictured in

"Lothair,"--fine houses, great retinues, costly clothing, clubs,

yachts, conservatories, etc., etc.,--in fact, an existence without a

crumpled rose-leaf, that would make a man a mixture of the sybarite

and satyr. Such specimens of humanity may occasionally be found in

America, but they are not yet a distinct class, nor are they likely to

become one in our pushing, up-and-down, constantly changing society.

Indeed, amid the earnest strivings, the intellectual aspirings and the

mechanical wonders of steam and electricity which environ us, a

semi-monster of the Lothair type would be as incongruous as a faun on

the Avenue or a Pagan temple on mid-Broadway.

If we would only take the trouble to examine the facts before our eyes

we have constantly in our university towns the proof that high

culture and moderation in dress and living go together. Take

Cambridge, Mass., for instance; its very best society is singularly

unostentatious, and the wives and daughters of its educated

dignitaries entertain without extravagance, and look for respect and

admiration from some loftier standpoint than their dress trimmings.

Ought we to Wear Mourning?

This is a question that from the earliest days of Christianity has at

times agitated the Church. It was specially dominant in the first

centuries, when every divergence from Jewish or Pagan rites was almost

an act of faith. Now the Jews, after the death of their relatives,

wore sackcloth during their time of mourning, which lasted from seven

to forty days. They sat on the ground, and ate their food off the

earth; they neither dressed themselves, nor made their beds, nor went

into the bath, nor saluted any one. This excess of grief rarely lasted

long; then a great feast was made for the surviving friends of the

dead; or the bread and meat were placed upon his grave for the

benefit of the poor. (Tobit iv. 17; Eccles. xxx. 18; and Baruch vi.

27.)

It was natural for the Christian, with the hope set before him, to

oppose this despairing sorrow, and we find Saint Jerome praising those

who partially abandoned it; while Cyprian declares he was "ordered by

Divine revelation to preach that Christians should not lament their

brethren delivered from the world, nor wear any mourning habits for

them, seeing that they were gone to put on white raiment, nor give

occasion for unbelievers by lamenting those as lost whom we affirm to

be with God."

As the Church lapsed from its simplicity into forms and ceremonies,

vestments of all kinds, and for every purpose and occasion, gained

importance; and the first serious protestation against mourning

garments came from the Quakers. To these spiritual men and women it

seemed absurd to wear black garments for those whom they believed had

put on everlasting white. The majority of the early Methodists held

the same opinion, though in a less positive form. It is remarkable,

however, that Christians alone assume the woeful, despairing black

garments which seem to denote not only the loss of life, but the end

of hope. Ancient Egypt wore yellow in memory of departed friends; the

Greeks and Romans used white garments for mourning; the Chinese also

consecrate white to the services of death, and the Mohammedans wear

blue, because it is the color of the visible heavens.

Therefore I ask, if we must wear a distinct dress to typify our

sorrow, why black? Black has now become objectionable from having lost

all the sacred meaning it once possessed. It is no longer the livery

of grief. The blonde belle wears it because it sets off her fine

complexion; the brunette, because it admits of the vivid contrasts so

suitable to her brilliant beauty. The prudent wear it because it is

economical and ladylike; and all women know that it imparts grace and

dignity, and drapes beautifully; so, for these and many other reasons,

it has within the last fifty years become an every-day dress, one just

as likely to express vanity as grief.

The reasons set forth by the Quakers for its abandonment cover the

ground, and are at least worthy of our consideration. They are: First,

that mourning had its origin in a state of barbarism, and prior to the

revelation of "life eternal through Jesus Christ," and is therefore

not to be observed in civilized and Christianized countries. Second,

that the trappings of grief are childish where the grief is real, and

mockery where it is not. Third, that mourning garments are absolutely

useless: for if they are intended to remind us of our affliction, true

grief needs no such reminder; if to point out our grief to others,

they are an impertinence, for true sorrow courts seclusion; and if as

a consolation, they are only powerful to remind of an irrevocable

past. Fourth, their inconvenience: too often the house of death is

turned by them into a busy work-shop; and the souls bowed down with

grief are made to trouble themselves about mourning ornaments and

becoming weeds. Fifth, their bad moral influence: the gracefulness of

the costume stills the grief that ought to be stilled by religion; and

as in a large family there must be many mourners in form only, the

equivocation of dress is a sort of moral equivocation. Sixth, their

expense. This is really a great item in the resources of the poor, and

often straitens for years; besides causing them, in the hour of their

desolation, to be so worried and anxious about the robing of the body

as to miss all the lessons God intended for the soul.

The advocates for mourning plead the veiling of the heavens in black

at the death of Christ; and the universality and continuance of the

custom, in all ages, all countries, and all faiths. I am aware that

the subject is one in which strangers cannot intermeddle; the question

when it arises must be settled by every heart individually. But, at

least, if mourning garments are to be worn, let us not defeat every

argument in their favor by fashioning them of the richest stuffs, and

in the most stylish manner. This is to ticket them as the thinnest of

mockeries. And after all, if we approve mourning, and wish our friends

to hold us in remembrance after death, can we not find a better way

than by crape and bombazine? Yes, crape and bombazine wear out, and

must finally be cast off; but the "memorial of virtue is immortal.

When it is present, men take example of it, and when it is gone, they

desire it: it weareth a crown, and triumpheth forever."