f this "society" are to
persons below them in fortune or position, let us allow, but how are they
to each other? Nothing can be ruder or less considerate of the feelings
of others than much of that which is called good society, and this is why
the Drawer desires to turn the altruistic sentiment of the world upon it
in this season, set apart by common consent for usefulness. Unfortunate
are the fortunate if they are lifted into a sphere which is sapless of
delicacy of feeling for its own. Is this an intangible matter? Take
hospitality, for instance. Does it consist in astonishing the invited, in
overwhelming him with a sense of your own wealth, or felicity, or family,
or cleverness even; in trying to absorb him in your concerns, your
successes, your possessions, in simply what interests you? However
delightful all these may be, it is an offense to his individuality to
insist that he shall admire at the point of the social bayonet. How do
you treat the stranger? Do you adapt yourself and your surroundings to
him, or insist that he shall adapt himself to you? How often does the
stranger, the guest, sit in helpless agony in your circle (all of whom
know each other) at table or in the drawing-room, isolated and separate,
because all the talk is local and personal, about your little world, and
the affairs of your clique, and your petty interests, in which he or she
cannot possibly join? Ah! the Sioux Indian would not be so cruel as that
to a guest. There is no more refined torture to a sensitive person than
that. Is it only thoughtlessness? It is more than that. It is a want of
sympathy of the heart, or it is a lack of intelligence and broad-minded
interest in affairs of the world and in other people. It is this
trait--absorption in self--pervading society more or less, that makes it
so unsatisfactory to most people in it. Just a want of human interest;
people do not come in contact.

Avid pursuit of wealth, or what is called pleasure, perhaps makes people
hard to each other, and infuses into the higher social life, which should
be the most unselfish and enjoyable life, a certain vulgarity, similar to
that noticed in well-bred tourists scrambling for the seats on top of a
mountain coach. A person of refinement and sensibility and intelligence,
cast into the company of the select, the country-house, the radiant,
twelve-button society, has been struck with infinite pity for it, and
asks the Drawer to do something about it. The D