en
who have money, and so far have one reality, but who have not, by their
own birth or their husband's, the original standing which would give
them this influence as of right. Some make themselves notorious for
their drawing-room patronage of artists, which, however, does not often
include buying their pictures; others gather around them scores of
obscure authors, whose books they talk of, if they do not read; a few, a
short time since, were centres of spiritualistic circles, and got a
queer kind of social influence thereby, so far as Philistine desire to
witness the "manifestations" went; and one or two are names of weight in
the emancipated ranks, and take chiefly to what they call "working
women." These are they who attend Ladies' Committees, where they talk
bosh, and pound away at utterly uninteresting subjects, as diligently as
if what they said had any point in it, and what they did any ultimate
issue in probability or common sense. But beyond the fact of having a
large house, where their several sets may assemble at stated periods,
these would-be lady patronesses are utterly impotent to help or hinder;
and their patronage is just so much pinchbeck, not worth the trouble of
weighing.

In all this gaudy attempt at show, this restless dissatisfaction with
what they are, and ceaseless endeavour to appear something they are not,
our middle-class ladies are doing themselves and society infinite
mischief. They set the tone to the world below them, and the small
tradespeople and the servants, when they copy the vices of their
superiors, do not imitate her grace the duchess, but the doctor's wife
over the way, and the lawyer's lady next door, and the young ladies
everywhere, who all try to appear women of rank and fortune, and who are
ashamed of nothing as much as of industry, truth and simplicity. Hence
the rage for cheap finery in the kitchen, just a trifle more ugly and
debased than that worn in the drawing-room; hence the miserable
pretentiousness, and pinchbeck fine-ladyism, filtering like poison
through every pore of our society, to result God only knows in what
grave moral cataclysm, unless women of mind and education will come to
the front, and endeavour to stay the plague already begun.

Chains and brooches may seem but small material causes for important
moral effects, but they are symbols; and, as symbols, of deep national
value. No good will be done till we get back some of our fine old horror
of pinchbeck,