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!