CHAPTER VII.
When I awoke the morning after the Merivales' Musical, the forenoon
was already pretty well advanced and a light, warm fire was burning in
my room. Outside, the winter wind was shrieking plaintively, and over
every pane of the window were dense layers of frosty ferns and
grasses. It wanted a few minutes for the half hour after ten by the
prattling little time-piece on the mantel. I arose and dressed
languidly, feeling dull and oppressed and rang for a cup of strong
coffee. I felt no appetite for breakfast, and drawing my warm, heavy
wrapper around me I wheeled a low easy chair toward the fire and sank
wearily into it.
It may be a wise policy for the votaries of gaslight pleasures to
maintain that there is no baneful result arising from a constant
pursuit of such distractions, but, however wise this attitude may be,
I hardly think it can rely upon the sanction of our conscience. It is
certainly not sound truth. For the abnormal life which society
prescribes for her followers is fruitful of most injurious
consequences. Evil effects do not always thrust themselves upon our
notice in any directly pronounced way. Very often those which are most
pernicious have a stealthy and unobtrusive progress, and it is only
when their destructive mission is well accomplished that we become
aware of their existence. There are physical, moral, and mental
wrecks, the playthings of every varying circumstance that agitates the
sea of life, who are living examples of the truth I uphold: men and
women who have made an oblation of their greatest energies and
capacities to lay upon the altars of a profitless materialism.
Pages:
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134