250 The Force of Fajhion. 
We all know that there are certain appointed times, when 
you are fure of finding your friends at home : then it is that 
doors are thrown open to fuch a crowd, we may well call 
them an undistinguished, and fometimes an undistinguish- 
ing multitude. What is this but a well-cloathed mob, where 
each is entitled to a place at a card-table ? What a profti- 
tution is this of the dignity of a rational being ! To preferve 
our honor and to fquander our time, if it is not an abfolute 
contradiction, is being but half virtuous. 
I am not an enemy to social pleafures : what grieves me, is 
to fee the reality of the thing give place to the name of it. 
Social pleafures are deftroyed, unlefs you call thofe meetings 
by that name, where there is much bustle, and exchange of 
crowns or guineas, like a banker’s fhop, wdth hardly a poftibi- 
lity of difcourfing. Nay, you corrupt the common air ; by 
confining a great number of people in a fmall compafs, you 
make war with nature, as if you meant not only to give a 
mortal wound to your pleasures, but even to your lives. 
Thus the fpirits of moft genteel females, and I muft con- 
fefs, of many fine gentlemen alfo, are in one continued ftate 
of diffipation. Like a foldier, whofe thoughts of death are 
banifhed, by his adfing in a crowd, yours are put in a ftate 
unfit for the difcharge of the duties of life by the fame means. 
If this is not the cafe with all, fo many enter the list, as may 
well draw tears from the eyes of the thoughtful few. Hence 
it arifes, that your very exiftcnce is rendered irksome : you are 
but 
