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Updated: July 27, 2025
Cumming is uncorking his seventh phial. I never felt before what barbarians we are. THE MISTRESS. Yet you won't deny that the life of the average man is safer and every way more comfortable than it was even a century ago. THE FIRE-TENDER. But what I want to know is, whether what we call our civilization has done any thing more for mankind at large than to increase the ease and pleasure of living?
Mandeville had gone too far, except in the opinion of Our Next Door, who declared that an imitation was just as good as an original, if you could not detect it. But Herbert said that the closer an imitation is to an original, the more unendurable it is. But nobody could tell exactly why. The Fire-Tender said that we are imposed on by forms.
And the Mistress fell to chanting the comforts of modern civilization. THE FIRE-TENDER said he should like to know, by the way, if our civilization differed essentially from any other in anything but its comforts. HERBERT. We are no nearer religious unity. THE PARSON. We have as much war as ever. MANDEVILLE. There was never such a social turmoil.
THE FIRE-TENDER. It is not altogether the not minding their own business. Nobody does that. The usual explanation is, that people with one idea are tedious. But that is not all of it. For few persons have more than one idea, ministers, doctors, lawyers, teachers, manufacturers, merchants, they all think the world they live in is the central one. MANDEVILLE. And you might add authors.
Why are there no women architects? THE FIRE-TENDER. Want of the ballot, doubtless. It seems to me that here is a splendid opportunity for woman to come to the front. THE YOUNG LADY. They have no desire to come to the front; they would rather manage things where they are.
Mandeville had gone too far, except in the opinion of Our Next Door, who declared that an imitation was just as good as an original, if you could not detect it. But Herbert said that the closer an imitation is to an original, the more unendurable it is. But nobody could tell exactly why. The Fire-Tender said that we are imposed on by forms.
THE FIRE-TENDER. I suppose Mandeville would say that acting has got into a mannerism which is well described as stagey, and is supposed to be natural to the stage; just as half the modern poets write in a recognized form of literary manufacture, without the least impulse from within, and not with the purpose of saying anything, but of turning out a piece of literary work.
THE PARSON. That the world is going crazy on the notion of individual ability. Whenever a man attempts to reform himself, or anybody else, without the aid of the Christian religion, he is sure to go adrift, and is pretty certain to be blown about by absurd theories, and shipwrecked on some pernicious ism. THE FIRE-TENDER. I think the discussion has touched bottom.
The Fire-Tender was saying that it is astonishing how much is telegraphed us from the East that is not half so interesting. He was at a loss philosophically to account for the fact that the world is so eager to know the news of yesterday which is unimportant, and so indifferent to that of the day before which is of some moment. MANDEVILLE. I suspect that it arises from the want of imagination.
THE FIRE-TENDER. If they would master the noble art, and put their brooding taste upon it, we might very likely compass something in our domestic architecture that we have not yet attained. The outside of our houses needs attention as well as the inside. Most of them are as ugly as money can build.
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