THE OFFICE OF LUXURY. 33 



it is one of unquestionable importance; and there are none too 

 many instigating forces to arouse man from inertia and idleness. 

 At the highest degree of the scale, some men we will not say all 

 impose additional work and mental tension upon themselves in 

 order to have an elegant house, fine gardens, and high style ; in 

 the middle of the scale, other men will put themselves to addi- 

 tional trouble in order to procure some comfort which was only 

 recently a luxury, and can still hardly be distinguished from 

 one, or in order to reach a certain standard of respectability in 

 their manner of living, to which decorations and superfluities 

 will contribute. At the bottom of the scale numerous men and 

 women work longer or tax their ingenuity in order to procure 

 for themselves some secondary elegances which have become 

 common but are nevertheless luxuries, in that the abundance of 

 them does not contribute to the satisfaction of man's rudimen- 

 tary wants. 



The influence of luxury is very great upon social progress and 

 the arts, and upon the course of literary and scientific advance. 

 Industrial advancement is usually brought about by the efforts 

 of individuals of remarkable will and intelligence, but sensitive 

 to the attractions of material rewards. The surest of such re- 

 wards for the numerous spirits not solely devoted to an ideal is 

 wealth, and this to many men would lose its value if they were 

 deprived of the luxuries which they could obtain with it. While 

 there are many men of noble aspirations among great inventors 

 and the projectors of important enterprises who would be satis- 

 fied with the good they accomplished, there are others, energetic, 

 capable, and ardent, and valuable in economic progress, who are 

 guided by less noble ideas, and who, in themselves or their sur- 

 roundings, have keener perceptions of the attractions of luxury 

 than of pure intellectual enjoyments and the satisfaction of an 

 elevated self-respect. It is important for mankind as a whole 

 that such men do all they can for it. Translated for TJie Popular 

 Science Monthly from the Revue des Deux Mondes. 



The Congo natives of all tribes, Mr. Herbert Ward says, are ready speakers, 

 flowery in expression, adepts in tbe use of metaphors, clear in reasoning, and 

 alert in debate. The sonorous effect of their speech is greatly aided by the soft 

 inflections and harmonious euphony of their language. In many of the tribes it 

 is common for the speaker to hold in his hand a number of small sticks, each rep- 

 resenting a preconsidered point of his argument. Each point is subsequently 

 enumerated and emphasized by selecting and placing one of these sticks upon the 

 ground. A speaker will often begin his address by referring to events that hap- 

 pened in his earliest recollection, and in this manner will refer to every favorable 

 incident in his career, whether his stories apply or not to the subject under dis- 

 cussion. , 



VOL. XLV1I. 4 



