CONSEQUENCES OF MRS. GRUNDY s TYRANNY. 99 



their disapproval, that the few who do show it look eccen 

 tric and that did all act out their convictions, no such in 

 ference as the above would be drawn, and no such evil 

 would result ; noting this as we pass, we go on to reply 

 that these social restraints, and forms, and requirements, 

 are not small evils, but among the greatest. Estimate their 

 sum total, and we doubt whether they would not exceed 

 most others. Could we add up the trouble, the cost, the 

 jealousies, vexations, misunderstandings, the loss of time 

 and the loss of pleasure, which these conventions entail 

 could we clearly realize the extent to which we are all dai 

 ly hampered by them, daily enslaved by them ; we should 

 perhaps come to the conclusion that the tyranny of Mrs. 

 Grundy is worse than any other tyranny we suffer under. 

 Let us look at a few of its hurtful results ; beginning with 

 those of minor importance. 



It produces extravagance. The desire to be comme il 

 faut, which undei lies all conformities, whether of manners, 

 dress, or styles of entertainment, is the desire which makes 

 many a spendthrift and many a bankrupt. To &quot; keep up 

 appearances,&quot; to have a house in an approved quarter fur 

 nished in the latest taste, to give expensive dinners and 

 crowded soirees, is an ambition forming the natural outcome 

 of the conformist spirit. It is needless to enlarge on these 

 follies : they have been satirized by hosts of writers, and in 

 every drawing-room. All that here concerns us, is to point 

 out that the respect for social observances, which men think 

 so praiseworthy, has the same root with this effort to be 

 fashionable in mode of living ; and that, other things equal, 

 the last cannot be diminished without the first being dimin 

 ished also. If, noAV, we consider all that this extravagance 

 entails if we count up the robbed tradesmen, the stinted 

 governesses, the ill-educated children, the fleeced relatives, 

 who have to suffer from it if we mark the anxiety and the 

 many moral delinquencies which its perpetrators involve 



