Page:Free Opinions, Freely Expressed on Certain Phases of Modern Social Life and Conduct.djvu/234

 *wildering! My wife, for example, is always out. She has so many engagements. She has scarcely five minutes to herself, and is often quite knocked up with fatigue and excitement. She has no time to attend to housekeeping, and of course the children are almost entirely with their nurse and governess." This description applies to most households of a fashionable or "smart" character, and shows what a topsy-turveydom of the laws of Nature is allowed to pass muster, and to even meet with general approval. The "wife" of whom my honourable and distinguished friend spoke to me, rises languidly from her bed at eleven, and occupies all her time till two o'clock in dressing, manicuring, "transforming" and "massaging." She also receives and sends a few telegrams. At two o'clock she goes out in her carriage and lunches with some chosen intimates at one or other of the fashionable restaurants. Lunch over, she returns home and lies down for an hour. Then she arrays herself in an elaborate tea gown and receives a favoured few in her boudoir, where over a cup of tea she assists to tear into piecemeal portions the characters of her dearest friends. Another "rest" and again the business of the toilette is resumed. When en grande tenue she either goes out to dinner, or entertains a large party of guests at her own table. A tête-à-tête meal with her husband would appear to her in the light of a positive calamity. She stays up playing "Bridge" till two or three o'clock in the morning, and retires to bed more or less exhausted, and can only sleep with the aid of narcotics. She resumes the same useless existence, and perpetrates the same wicked waste of