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nobleman or two from England—a German countess—the greatest and most popular statesmen of our own land , had flung a dazzling splendour over these places . " During the whole of that season the United States Hotel had been kept in a state of delightful commotion by ihe rivalry of two leaders in the fashionable world , who had taken up their head-quarters in that noble establishment . " Never was a warfare carried on with such amiable bitterness , such caressing homethrusts . Everything was done regally , and with that sublime politeness which duellists practise when most determined to exterminate each other . Of course , each lady had her position and her followers , and no military chieftains ever managed their respective forces more adroitly . " Mrs . Nash was certainly the oldest incumbent , and had a sort of preemption right as a fashionable leader . She had won her place exactly as her husband had obtained his wealth ,
first plodding his way from the workshop to the coantmg-room , thence into the stockmarket , where , by two or three dashing speculations worthy of the gambling-table , and entered upon in the same spirit , he became a millionaire . " Exactly by the same method Mrs . Nash worked her way upward as a leader of ton . Originally uneducated and assuming , she had exercised unbounded sway over her husband ' s ¦ work-people , patronising their wives , and practising diligently the airs that were to be transferred with her husband's advancement into higher circles . " Through the rapid gradations of her husband ' s fortune , she held her own in the race , and grew important , dressy , and presuming , but not a whit better informed or more refined . When her husband became a millionaire , she made one audacious leap into the midst of the upper ten thousand , hustled her way upward , and facing suddenly about , proclaimed herself a leader in the fashionable world .
" People looked on complacently . Some smiled in derision ; some sneered with scorn ; others , too indolent or gentle for dispute , quietly admitted her charms ; while to that portion of society worth knowing , she retained her original character—that of a vulgar , fussy , ignorant woman , from 'whom persons of refinement shrunk instinctively . Thus , through the forbearance of some , the sneers of others , and the carelessness of all , she fought her way to a position which soon became legitimate and acknowledged . " But this year Mrs . Nash met with a very formidable rival , who disputed the ground shehad usurped inch , by inch . If Mrs . Nash was insolent , Mrs . Sykeswas sly and fascinating . / Writh tact that was more than a match for any amount of arrogant presumption , and education which ga ^_ e keenness to art , founded upon the same hard purpose and coarsegrainedcharacter that distinguished Mrs . Nash , she was well calculated to make a contest for fashionable superiority exciting and piquant . ' Women of true refinement never enter into these miserable rivalries for notoriety , but they sometimes look on amused . In this case the ladies were beautifully matched . The audacity of one was met with the artful sweetness of the other . If Mrs . Nash had power and the prestige of established authority , Mrs . Sykes opposed novelty , unmatched art , and a species of serpent-like fascination difficult to cope with ; and much to her astonishment , the former lady found her laurels dropping away leaf by leaf before she began to feel them wither . .
" But a few days before the fancy ball , a new fly was cast into the fashionable current , that quite eclipsed anything that had appeared before . ' An English earl , fresh from the Continent , came up to Saratoga one day , in a train from New York ^ and would be present at the fancy ball . " Here was new cause for strife between the Nashes and the Sykeses . Which of these ladies should secure the nobleman for the fancy ball ? True , the earl was very young , awkward as the school-boy he was , and really looked more like a juvenile horse-jockey than a civilised gentleman . But he was an earl ; would assuredly hav « a seat in the House of Lords , it ever he became old enough ; besides ^ he had already lost thirty thousand dollars at the gambling-table , and bore it like a prince . " ilere was an object worth contending for . "What American lady would be immortalised by leaning upon the arm of an earl as she entered the'assembly room ? No minor claims could be put in here . The earl undoubtedly belonged to Mrs . Nash or Mrs . Sybes—which should it be ? _ This was the question that agitated all fashionable life at the Springs to its centre . Partisans were brought into active operation . Private ambassadors went and came
from the gambling saloons to the drawing-rooms , looking more portentous than any messenger ever sent from the allied powers to the Czar . ' " The innocent young lord , who had escaped from his tutor for a lark at the Springs , was terribly embarrassed by so many attentions . Too young for any knowledge of society in his own land , he made desperate efforts to appear a man of the world , and feel himself at home in a country where men are set aside , while society is converted into a paradise for boys * It 3 s rumoured that some professional gentlemen took advantage of tins confusion in the young lordling ' s ideas , and his losses at tho gambling-table grew more and more princely . " But the important night arrived . The mysterious operations of many a private dressing-room fcecame visible . A hundred bright and fantastic forms trod their way to music along the open colonnade of the hotel toward the assembly-room- The brilliant procession entered the folding-doors , and swept down the room—two rivers of human life , flowing on , whirling and retiring , beneath a shower of radianco cast from the wall , and the chandeliers that seemed literally raining light . In her toilet , the American lady is not a shade behind our neighbours of Paris ; and no saloon in the world ever surpassed this in picturesque effect and richness of costume . Diamonds were plentiful as dew-drops on a rose thicket . Pearls , embedded in lace that Queou Elizabeth would have monopolised for her own toilet .
gleamed and fluttered around those republican fairies , a decided contrast to the checked handkerchief that Ben . Franklin used at the European court , or the bare feet with which our revolutionary fathers trod the way to our freedom through the winter snows . After the gay crowd had circulated around the room awhile , there was a psvuse in the music , a breaking up of the characters into groups ; then glances were cast toward the door , and murmure ran from lip to lip . Neither Mrs . Nash nor her rival had yot appeared ; as usual , their entrance was arranged to make a sensation . How Dodsworth ' s loader knew the exact time of this fashionable ' s advent , I do not pretend to say , Certain it is , just as the band struck up an exhilarating march , Mrs , Z . Nash entered tlio ro . om with erect front and pompous triumph , holding the English carl resolutely by tho arm . Mrs . Theodore Sykes camo in a good deal subdued and crestfallen , after the dancing commenced . She was escorted by one of tho moat illustrious of our American statesmen , which somewhat diminished tho bitterness of hor defeat . Her fancy drosa was one blaze of diamonds , and when Mm . Nash sailed by , holding the young « arl triumphantly by tho arm , she seemed oblivious of tho noblo presence , but was smiling up into tho evoa ot hor august companion aa if an American statesman really were somo small consolation for tho loss of a schoolboy nobleman who looked ais if ho would give his right arm , whioh , however , belonged to Mrs . Mash just then , to bo safo at homo , even with his tutor . "
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FAITH AND NEGATION . Miracles and Science . By Edward Strachoy . Longmans What w Truth f John Clmpmun ! We believo tho vulgar lamentation over tho spread of unbelief to bo one of tho many orthodox : deceptions . Whatever may be tho atrophy of churches , or the decay of dogmatic systems , tho religious spirit ia not waning , but increasing in strength , purity , and intensity . Tho race of believers is not yet extinct , nor will bo so long us man gives hostages of his affection to death , and swoops tho horizon of his earthly hopes -with nn unresting aspiration after tho beyond . But this religious spirit is tho offspring , not the enemy , of inquiry ; tho child of anguish , and of doubt . In lfraneo an awakening of this religious npirit ( which ban nothing hi common with a Statorovival ot ecclesiasticLsm ) hns been observed of into : perhaps aa a refuge from political discontent : perhaps tho herald of a simpler and severer ago of liberty to come—who knows ? ¦ In England tho same phenomenon is to bo noted . Within tlio pale of
orthodoxy a broader doctrine has sprung up , while infidelity itself has abjured scoffing , and discusses reverently the faith it combats and the doctrine it repudiates . Here are two remarkable examples of this double tendency ; two little books , distinguished equally for the unflinching thoroughness of their sincerity , for their bold grappling with the most momentous doubts , for the deeply religious and reverent spirit that lends dignity and a certain sadness to the impetuous antagonism of the one , confidence and calmness to the fearless investigations of the other . In both we recognise the true genius of Protestant inquiry , the true exercise of liberty of conscience ; and in both we discern the gleams of a dawning faith , more expansive and more humane than church or sect has yet conceived . There is a wide difference , however , between the two books ; and we can suppose the clearheaded and bravesouled thinker who seeks to conciliate faith with science a little startled at
his association with the uncompromising and unconciliating avenger of " natural religion against conventional usurpation . " The intellectual position of the two combatants is in . fact essentially different : the one has built up stronger bulwarks for the ancient faith to which he clings with generous and trustful devotedness , by the very aid of the most destructive engines of modern hetorodoxy ; the clear keen air of free inquiry has braced up his thought , and strengthened the vitality of his belief ; while the other , like a prisoner escaped , spurns every sign and vestige of his thraldom , and , in his impatience of authoritative religions , seems almost to confound the dogma and the instinct , the system , and the spirit , the doctrine and the corruption , in one sweeping denunciation . But the courage and the energy of the truth-seeker are in themselves virtues too rare and too emphatic to be passed over without a hearty greeting . It is only the cowardly , the insincere , and
the indifferent , who will resent the outspeaking of a mind that has fought its way out of aa indolent and dishonest acquiescence into the lonel y freedom of true belief approved by the conscience and ratified by the life . The writer of these letters in rejply to the everlasting Enigma leaves not one stone upon another of the Christian temple ; he rests not until he has created for himself a new heaven and a new earth ; -until he can kneel down a solitary worshipper at the shrine of Justice , "which is his highest conception of the duty of man and of the perfect providence of God . His letters ai-e addressed to certain orthodox friends—to a . lady whose religion is a sentiment ; to a I > oetor of D ivinity whose religion is an ' establishment ;'' and to a sympathetic though perhaps deprecating fellow-doubter . The writer thinks decisively and writes vigorously ; and if he is provoked into an occasional wildness of manner and intemperance of expletives , courtesy and good feeling never quite desert him , and in such discussions even rudeness is better than , reticence .
We would especially recommend these letters to the more calm and not less convinced author of " Miracles and Science , " as they contain the strongest and most , searching objections to which the orthodox scheme Is exposed , and which have not yet been dealt with even by so powerful and intrepid a pen as his . Our readers will at once appreciate the exceptional position occupied by Mr . Strachey among believers , when we tell them that his treatise on Miracles is prefaced by an introductory dialogue in which he insists that " Christianity and the Bible ought to be investigated , and their truth tested by the same methods of positive science as we employ in astronomy or chemistry . " And in another place he professes unfeigned respect for the genius of Auguste Comte . There are many noble sayings in these few pages for which we should be glad to find space . Here is one : " God ' s
name is Truth . If truth bids you follow to the bottomless pit , go : you will find God there . If the most orthodox , tradition offers to lead you to heaven , refuse ; for you will not find him by that path . " There ia one passage , however , on " Scepticism" to which we entirely demur , and which appears to us singularly inconsistent with the whole tone of the writer ' s mind , and the whole force of his position . After insisting on the necessity of testing the truth of religion by positive scientific methods , after admix-ably reproving the intellectual cowardice of false belief , and vindicating the right and the duty cf free inquiry , Mr . Strachey suggests in the following passage that scepticism is itself a disease : —
" Though I grant , nay protest , that the more lionest course for tho man who hns doubts ia to face them , 1 would beg tho reader to consider well whether what is honest lor him or for me is therefore of necessity good in itself ? Is not scepticism , curable or incurable . u curable or incurable disease of tho mind , and to bo treated accordingly ? It may have been no merit to our fathers that they did not feel our doubts , —nny , it may bo true that our doubts arc but the inheritance of their over-confidence , as the hard-drinking fox-hunter may transmit to his son tho consumption which never touched himself : it may be that the ' practical man of our own day is not only grossly credulous , but tho cause , through reaction , of scepticism iri others : but let us look at the facts , not ivt tho moral merits , and then say whether scepticism is in itself a more manly and healthy atuto ol mind tlmn credulity . Scepticism onnblos us to sec soveral sides of a matter whero practical men' see only one . to bo eclectics whore thoy arc partisans , and to look down on their attacks and defences of what wo discern to bo ono object , with tlio qahniioss of Kpivuroan god 3 ; but it givos us this knowledge only in paralysing at least our practical powers of duty , and often our moral aonsutoo . "
Now , using words in their strict sense , as wo are persuaded so exact and scientificathinker as Mr . Strachey would demand , we may be permitted to remind him that scepticism means nothing move than inquiry ; tho sceptic is simply tho ? ' inquirer . " How sceptic'Mn the course of time and the corruption of language camo to signify unbelief in a particular set of dogmas wo do not stop to examine : nor do vro understand in what sense Protestantism , which is nothing inova nor less than the right of free inquiry can stigmatise scepticism ( i . e . inquiry ) as a disease . If it bo a disease , Popery is tho ouro— -an alternative which we are certain so masterly a vindicator of private judgment as Mr . Strachey will bo as little disposed to accept as wo can bo . Desiring to take leave of Mr . Strachoy with a sunso of unimpaired admiration , wo conclude with this eloquent and piercing condemnation of
OUlt KlOTlGlCNtOltTUOOOXY . "Our faith la irulood wauk anil tot luring onou ^ lt : no thoughtful man can look into his own heart , or Into what may bo plainly ( liacorned of the heartu of his neighbours mid not , l >» unruro that under tho thin crust of our reticent orthodoxy volcanic iiros arc tjluinboriiur . Tlio inon whohuvogono out from uuiong us openly UuolaiW Hint honoat iuvobtlgntion of rucolvod opiniouu ubout ( JliriHliiinity hiia comiiufluil thoin to ubiuulou il for pure theism or clao that a still mivoror logic . Imu » hown thorn Hint not thoimn but atheism miat bu ' tliuir Jml if tlioy do not tnko rofugo in the iufalliblu authority of Uomo—those aro but tho nmromui-Utivoa of <» n ovor-inonjuttiug number wlio « ro ailomly yielding Llicinsolvos to tlio proapuct wf
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788 THE > 1 E 1 I >< E Ri " [ Sa ^ urda ^ ,
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), Aug. 19, 1854, page 788, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2052/page/20/
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