our incomes--except to the tax-collector, and to him we exaggerate our
"outgoings"; we exaggerate our virtues; we even exaggerate our vices,
and, being in reality the mildest of men, pretend we are dare-devil
scamps.

We have sunk so low now that we try to _act_ our exaggerations, and to
live up to our lies. We call it "keeping up appearances;" and no
more bitter phrase could, perhaps, have been invented to describe our
childish folly.

If we possess a hundred pounds a year, do we not call it two? Our larder
may be low and our grates be chill, but we are happy if the "world" (six
acquaintances and a prying neighbor) gives us credit for one hundred and
fifty. And, when we have five hundred, we talk of a thousand, and the
all-important and beloved "world" (sixteen friends now, and two of them
carriage-folks!) agree that we really must be spending seven hundred, or
at all events, running into debt up to that figure; but the butcher and
baker, who have gone into the matter with the housemaid, know better.

After awhile, having learned the trick, we launch out boldly and spend
like Indian Princes--or rather _seem_ to spend; for we know, by this
time, how to purchase the seeming with the seeming, how to buy the
appearance of wealth with the appearance of cash. And the dear old
world--Beelzebub bless it! for it is his own child, sure enough; there
is no mistaking the likeness, it has all his funny little ways--gathers
round, applauding and laughing at the lie, and sharing in the cheat, and
gloating over the thought of the blow that it knows must sooner or later
fall on us from the Thor-like hammer of Truth.

And all goes merry as a witches' frolic--until the gray morning dawns.

Truth and fact are old-fashioned and out-of-date, my friends, fit only
for the dull and vulgar to live by. Appearance, not reality, is what the
clever dog grasps at in these clever days. We spurn the dull-brown solid
earth; we build our lives and homes in the fair-seeming rainbow-land of
shadow and chimera.

To ourselves, sleeping and waking there, _behind_ the rainbow, there is
no beauty in the house; only a chill damp mist in every room, and, over
all, a haunting fear of the hour when the gilded clouds will melt
away, and let us fall--somewhat heavily, no doubt--upon the hard world
underneath.

But, there! of what matter is _our_ misery, _our_ terror? To the
stranger, our home appears fair and bright. The workers in the fields
below look up