s bonnets; she hated gloves that were not as fresh as new-laid eggs,
and shoes that had grown bulgy and wrinkled in service; she hated common
crockeryware and teaspoons of slight constitution; she hated second
appearances on the dinner-table; she hated coarse napkins and
table-cloths; she hated to ride in the horsecars; she hated to walk
except for short distances, when she was tired of sitting in her
carriage. She loved with sincere and undisguised affection a spacious
city mansion and a charming country villa, with a seaside cottage for a
couple of months or so; she loved a perfectly appointed household, a cook
who was up to all kinds of salmis and vol-au-vents, a French maid, and a
stylish-looking coachman, and the rest of the people necessary to help
one live in a decent manner; she loved pictures that other people said
were first-rate, and which had at least cost first-rate prices; she loved
books with handsome backs, in showy cases; she loved heavy and richly
wought plate; fine linen and plenty of it; dresses from Paris frequently,
and as many as could be got in without troubling the customhouse; Russia
sables and Venetian point-lace; diamonds, and good big ones; and,
speaking generally, she loved dear things in distinction from cheap ones,
the real article and not the economical substitute.

For the life of me I cannot see anything Satanic in all this. Tell me,
Beloved, only between ourselves, if some of these things are not
desirable enough in their way, and if you and I could not make up our
minds to put up with some of the least objectionable of them without any
great inward struggle? Even in the matter of ornaments there is
something to be said. Why should we be told that the New Jerusalem is
paved with gold, and that its twelve gates are each of them a pearl, and
that its foundations are garnished with sapphires and emeralds and all
manner of precious stones, if these are not among the most desirable of
objects? And is there anything very strange in the fact that many a
daughter of earth finds it a sweet foretaste of heaven to wear about her
frail earthly tabernacle these glittering reminders of the celestial
city?

Mrs. Midas Goldenrod was not so entirely peculiar and anomalous in her
likes and dislikes; the only trouble was that she mixed up these
accidents of life too much with life itself, which is so often serenely
or actively noble and happy without reference to them. She valued
persons chiefly