14
A NINETEENTH CENTURY SATIRE
Or patronise the forms of godliness;
Much too is there of cold formality
In modernised conventionality;
Both the idea of it and the word
Imply restraints that ofttimes are absurd;
Conventionality makes genteel slaves
Of great folks, rich folks, simpletons and knaves;
While he who breaks the rules of etiquette.
Is deemed not to have learnt good manners yet.
All classes have their similarities,
Ariel all have their peculiarities;
But in Society's superior schools
All must submit to arbitrary rules;
Conventionality presumes to fix
The time Society should dine—at six—
But grants it the long interval till nine.
For feeding, gossip, and cigars and wine;[1]
NOTES
- ↑ For feeding, gossip, and cigars and wine;] Luxurious food, dress, and amusements occupy almost all the attention of the wealthy in this great metropolis. As a writer in the Lancet, on Modern Luxuriousness in living, puts it: 'It is beyond a joke to be invited to a dinner now-a-days, with its interminable number of dishes. Some physical evils are certain to overtake those who indulge in them—gout,
