Page:Diary of a Pilgrimage (1891).pdf/213

 spend; for we know, by this time, how to purchase the seeming with the seeming, how to buy the appearance of wealth with the appearance of cash. And the dear old world,—Beelzebub bless it! for it is his own child, sure enough; there is no mistaking the likeness, it has all his funny little ways,—gathers round, applauding and laughing at the lie, and sharing in the cheat, and gloating over the thought of the blow that it knows must sooner or later fall on us from the Thor-like hammer of Truth.

And all goes merry as a witches' frolic—until the grey morning dawns.

Truth and fact are old-fashioned and out-of-date, my friends, fit only for the dull and vulgar to live by. Appearance, not reality, is what the clever dog grasps at in these clever days. We spurn the dull-brown solid earth; we build our lives and homes in the fair-seeming rainbow-land of shadow and chimera.

To ourselves, sleeping and waking there, behind the rainbow, there is no beauty in the house; only a chill, damp mist in every room, and, over all, a haunting fear of the hour when the gilded clouds will melt away, and let us fall—somewhat heavily, no doubt—upon the hard world underneath.

But, there! of what matter is our misery, our terror? To the stranger, our home appears fair and bright. The workers in the fields below look up and envy us our abode of glory and delight! If they think it pleasant, surely we should be content. Have we not been taught to live for others and not for ourselves, and are we not acting up bravely to the teaching—in this most curious method?

Ah! yes, we are self-sacrificing enough, and loyal enough in our devotion to this new-crowned king, the child of Prince Imposture and Princess Pretence. Never