When at college I had rooms in a neat cottage owned by an American family.The father was a butcher, as were his sons.The only daughter was exceedingly pretty.The hard-worked mother conceived high hopes for this favorite child.She was sent to a boarding-school, from which she returned entirely unsettled for life, having learned little except to be ashamed of her parents and to play on the piano.One of these instruments of torture was bought, and a room fitted up as a parlor for the daughter's use.As the family were fairly well-to-do, she was allowed to dress out of all keeping with her parents' position, and, egged on by her mother, tried her best to marry a rich "student." Failing in this, she became discontented, unhappy, and finally there was a scandal, this poor victim of a false ambition going to swell the vast tide of a city's vice.With a sensible education, based on the idea that her father's trade was honorable and that her mission in life was to aid her mother in the daily work until she might marry and go to her husband, prepared by experience to cook his dinner and keep his house clean, and finally bring up her children to be honest men and women, this girl would have found a happy future waiting for her, and have been of some good in her humble way.
It is useless to multiply illustrations.One has but to look about him in this unsettled country of ours.The other day in front of my door the perennial ditch was being dug for some gas-pipe or other.Two of the gentlemen who had consented to do this labor wore frock-coats and top hats - or what had once been those articles of attire - instead of comfortable and appropriate overalls.Why? Because, like the stable-boy, to have worn any distinctive dress would have been in their minds to stamp themselves as belonging to an inferior class, and so interfered with their chances of representing this country later at the Court of St.James, or presiding over the Senate, - positions (to judge by their criticism of the present incumbents) they feel no doubt as to their ability to fill.