ly and sightfully than to-day, when, be it said in passing, the
fashions of the last hundred years, especially as to men, distinguish
themselves by their utter tastelessness. No longer will a new fashion be
introduced every three months, an act of folly that stands in intimate
relation with the competitive struggle of women among themselves, with
the ostentatiousness and vanity of society, and with the necessity for
the display of wealth. To-day a mass of establishments and people live
upon this folly of fashion, and are compelled by their own interests to
stimulate and force it. Together with the folly of fashion in dress,
falls the folly of fashion in the style of architecture. Eccentricity
reaches here its worst expression. Styles of architecture that required
centuries for their development and that sprang up among different
peoples--we are no longer satisfied with European styles, we go to the
Japanese, Indians and Chinese--are used up in a few decades and laid
aside. Our poor professional artists no longer know whither and whereto
they should turn with and for their samples and models. Hardly have they
assorted themselves with one style, and expect to recover with ease the
outlays they have made, when a new style breaks in upon them, and
demands new sacrifices of time and money, of mental and physical powers.
The nervousness of the age is best reflected in the rush from one
fashion to the other, from one style to the other. No one will dare to
claim any sense for such hurrying and scurrying, or the merit of its
being a symptom of social health.

_Socialism alone will re-introduce a greater stability in the habits of
life._ It will make repose and enjoyment possible; it will be a
liberator from hurry and excessive exertion. Nervousness, that scourge
of our age, will disappear.

But labor is also to be made pleasant. To that end practical and
tastefully contrived workshops are required; the utmost precautions
against danger; the removal of disagreeable odors, gases and smoke,--in
short, of all sources of injury or discomfort to health. At the start,
the new social system will carry on production with the old means,
inherited from the old. But these are utterly inadequate. Numerous and
unsuitable workshops, disintegrated in all directions; imperfect tools
and machinery, running through all the stages of usefulness;--this heap
is insufficient both for the number of the workers and for their demands
of comfort and of