Page:Free Opinions, Freely Expressed on Certain Phases of Modern Social Life and Conduct.djvu/128

 the last to be swayed by financial considerations. One has never heard (in England at least) of any "Company" paying several thousand pounds to the Press for "floating it." Though such things may be done in America, they are never tolerated here. But, the Press apart, which in its unblemished rectitude "shines like a good deed in a naughty world," most things in modern politics and society are swayed by money considerations, and the sudden acquisition of wealth does not in many cases improve the morality of the person so favoured, or persuade him to discharge such debts as he may have incurred in his days of limited means. On the contrary, he frequently ignores these, and proceeds to incur fresh liabilities, as in the striking case of a lady "leader of society" at the present day, who, having owed large sums to certain harmless and confiding tradesmen for the past seven or eight years, ignores these debts or "shunts them," and spends six thousand pounds recklessly on the adornment of rooms for the entertainment of Royalty—which fact most notably proclaims her vulgarity, singularly allied to her social distinction. The payment of her debts first, and the entertainment of great personages afterwards, would seem to be a nobler and more becoming thing.

But show and vanity, pride and "bounce," appear to have taken the place of such old-fashioned virtues as simplicity, sincerity, and that genuine hospitality which asserts nothing, but gives all.

Kind hearts are more than coronets, And simple faith than Norman blood.

In very few cases does immense wealth seem to