le breaks through this monotony,
and sails to nurse the wounded or the dying of our army in the East, and
"Common Sense" writes in newspapers against such a noble act; and a
religious paper saw in it Popery at the very least. What a howl has
there been in some quarters because a few clergymen have taken to
preaching in theatres! Even, woman's heart, with its gushing sympathies,
has become dead and shrivelled up, where that relentless scourge--that
demon of our time, the monotony of civilization--has been suffered to
intrude. It is owing to that, that when we look for deeds angels might
love to do, our daughters, and sisters, and those whom we most
passionately love, scream out Italian songs which neither they nor we
understand, and bring to us, as the result of their noblest energies, a
fancy bag or a chain of German wool. Such is the result of what Sir W.
Curtis termed the three R's and the usual accomplishments. Humanity has
been stereotyped. We follow one another like a flock of sheep. We have
levelled with a vengeance; we have reduced the doctrine of human equality
to an absurdity--we live alike, think alike, die alike. A party in a
parlour in Belgrave Square, "all silent and all d---d," is as like a
party in a parlour in Hackney as two peas. The beard movement was a
failure; so was the great question of hat reform, and for similar
reasons. We still scowl upon a man with a wide-a-wake, as we should upon
a pick-pocket or a cut-throat. A leaden monotony hangs heavy on us all.
Not more does one man or woman differ from another than does policeman A1
differ from policeman A 999. Individuality seems gone: independent life
no longer exists. Our very thought and inner life is that of Buggins,
who lives next door. The skill of the tailor has made us all one, and
man, as God made him, cuts but a sorry figure by the side of man as his
tailor made him. This is an undeniable fact: it is not only true but
_the_ truth. One motive serves for every variety of deed--for dancing
the polka or marrying a wife--for wearing white gloves or worshipping the
Most High. "At any rate, my dears," said a fashionable dame to her
daughters when they turned round to go home, on finding that the crowded
state of the church to which they repaired would not admit of their
worshipping according to Act of Parliament,--"At any rate, my dears, we
have done the genteel thing." By that mockery to God she had made
herself right in the sight