Show KEEPING UP HP appearances BY ALFRED I 1 the keeping up of appearances is a disease not peculiar to one individual or one class all the world is always trying to keep up appearances it is the means by which evelyb everybody ady and more cu curious still are self deceivers when any unfortunate individual fails in the I 1 attempt to keep beep up appearances all the rest of the world flies at hini him and tears him piecemeal emeal he is dragged before judges appointed for the purpose and a court solely appropriated tt tb try such lounh fools and there placed in confinement that he may not have the opportunity of again I 1 disgracing the world by failing in his attempt to keep up app appearances ea ances nine tenths of his judges a and nd detractors all the while trembling on the verge nerge of the same destructive fall yet they smile on as if in the greatest state of security lavishing 11 their means with troubled souls he be cause they must keep up appearances the world is always straining and ever reach ing itself in all its grades to be in the one above it every one wishes to be tho thought ht something more than he or she really is T thus r us 1 you see the maid of all work or family drudge hunger hanger for her holiday and when it arrives arrives fag herself to death by wandering through the streets in her best beat things lauy degrees too fine with a veil and aboa a boa which she ohe must put in her pocket before she returns home merely for the fleeting vanity of being taken for somebody who did not know the shape of a mop or a scrubbing brush many a man who is obliged to keep up ap appearances pe arances by dressing well which is a very expensive 11 I 1 part of the delusion must cut down 0 his expenses another in other quarters consequently his lodgings lose loae in respectability of situation what his coat gains in texture and cut to have his I 1 I 1 boots and hat always in an undeniable state he I 1 must put pat up with a second floor back and if insane enough to indulge in a with velvet I 1 facings arld and a llama shawl suppers must be represented by hard biscuits the cheap locality in which this kind of single appearance lives is ot very little consequence to him his cautious manoeuvres to get out oat of it its from his nervous apprehension of be being ing seen I 1 by the world that really cares nothing about him a are re amusing and droll he pods pops out opt suddenly with nath a hurried glance around to see that the coast is clear the door is slammed to with a I 1 nervous nervous twitch as if he placed the trap upon the domestic demon in possession of his secret I 1 but before emerging from the end of the street I 1 into the world he looks about as if he had missed missed his way looks up at the name of the street when seeing fleeing all right he starts out upon the broad pavement defying the world to say or believe that he had cleaned hie is own boots of unexceptionable I 1 make the keeping up of appearances is in the main main a drollery prompted by vanity pride and folly yet et in many cases it is a thing of much pathos I 1 and through its workings are shown shown some of the most beautiful feelings of our nature who I 1 can see aee kumoi unmoved red the issuing from hit his widowed mothers to seek the drudgery y of I 1 his office that promises him ere long a remuneration ne that wilt will enable him to place that fond mother in comfort see his nicely folded collar I 1 white as snow falling over the scrupulously brushed jacket and the old silk handkerchief tied on bycer by her careful hand to guard against the I 1 aly ariy morning cold in a neat paper packet he hears his frugal dinner unknowing that his I 1 I 1 mother makes her tea do for dinner and all that I 1 I 1 she he may have a comfortable meal for her darling zy boy on his return thus touching on the very I 1 verge of starvation that he may keep up appearances the clerk of narrow stipe stipend who alone did brilliantly is taken in by appearances until he finds it impossible to disentangle himself from I 1 the enthralment of blue eyes and ringlets and in that mo moment ineAt which most men have in their lives proposes for the fair one to the old people 1 I 1 cunning to keep up appearances who accept 1 him accept him accordingly and he soon marries ies a young lady with a very nice voice and a charming performer on the pianoforte piano forte that is left behind for her younger sisters I 1 to practice U upon p r I 1 mire here begins his struggle to keep up appearances he must cake and wine his friends or they would think him as poor I 1 as he is ato 1 to he be I 1 poor and seem so is ische the devil say the I 1 old people and he commits all sorts of follies ao accordingly adin g ly in the course of time the first child is is christened everybody comes this i is abolt the last scintilla scintillation tiou common sense omes comes to the young and they find that they must pull up I 1 or they will soon be tunable unable to keep up appearances I 1 at all I 1 nor isow commences comien ces his hard work hi hats will I 1 get shabby clothes will get seedy boots are not everlasting yet it wont doctor the nattiest nastiest natt iest I 1 man in the office to lose his bis alape in the scale the 3 young wife struggles eggl uggl ev and does without her new abik ilk dree that he may have a new dew coat she zito cuts and contrives to furbish up last years bonnet and with the aidon aid of a new people who are not too prying might really take it for a bonnet just sent befit home her songs and her vanities are forgotten in her anxiety that they should keep up appearances if asked to to sing she ahe stumbles for wa want ut of practice and seldom seldom 0 ir sings except to baby who is no great judge she follows her husband door on his morning departure with the brush in her hand to take lake off the last bit of flue aue or have another 1 brush at his hat and he be walks out looking at least leapt five hundred abear if not more and no one to look at t him would think that he be was a man likely to tremble at a water rate for he keeps up appearances uncommonly well another child is born his hat must get shabbier hab bier and he has much wore more difficulty lilly in preparing it for the public gaze he sighs as its he sees the summer approach which he has hitherto welcomed pleasure I 1 for he must lay hy by his hig cloak 4 has been such a brood friend to him during flie winter assisting him in every way to circumvent the prying eyes of I 1 his hig friends from discovering his bis clothes were woin more th anthey ought to be con sideri ug his grade rade in society which is if he were not bitten by the general mania something with three times his income I 1 the consequence of all thip thic is that he gets into to debt and in his attempts to appear very I 1 respect respectable Ale he i in a reality becomes not at all so go his ti quarters salary though much increased since his marriage is bespoken twice over the baker tarn morose ino roae and the tha batcher savage I 1 he gets ner nervous volis and timid and is afraid of his I 1 own knocker and he undergoes an hourly torture because he will keep up appearances he I 1 will have it lar larger er house than he be wants he will I 1 give wine wine to tie hia friends when they dine with him although he be mell mentally tall friends calculates the vallie I 1 j of each glass as his dear friends swallow it with i the full belief the more they drink the more he is gratified for from appearances he is well I 1 j able to afford it I 1 his wife although a good one knocks herself 1 up p both mentally and bodily providing and cooking a more profuse dinner than is necessary because people should think that they were ve very ry well off and sees them to the door on their departure with the most reckless flaring of wax candles when if any one one of the party were to return for his umbrella he would be greeted by the smell of their rapid extinguishing which she is sure to perform before the echo of their footsteps has ceased to sound down the street whilst hor bar husband is pouring the bottoms of wine into one bottle to be carefully put by after a tedious putting away and the selecting the borrowed from their own they crawl off to bed solaced in their f fatigue by the hipe that they have astonished their friends and kept up appearances an old lady some years ago who belonged to a family of some standing voluntarily banished herself far afield from the locality where site she was known that she might save part of her stipend to remit to her elder sister who still lived in the house that the had in more prosperous times she paid her regular visits few and far between as if she were as rich as ever which she ahe managed to do by coming by the cheapest conveyance to the nearest posting town and rattling in from thence to her native place in style here for a short ashert time she lived in the luxury of keeping ke up appearances arances as they used to be by which she was repaid for all the rest of her ti time m e being spent in almost penury at last he her r s sister i iter died wid aid a id she came in her turn a lone woman to reside in the family house bouse she gave her sister of course a splendid funeral worthy of the family and invited all the highest of her acquaintance to follow in honor of her ancient name I 1 after the interment she let left two of her old servants to keep house who were as jealous of her honor as herself and proceeded to her dial dibi tant home to settle as she said her affairs there ere she took permanent possession of the family hoe she was absent for some months upon this errand elland merely to economise econom ise aften the biad dreadful expenditure incurred by he her r sis sisters i t era P un she returned however apparently JOA 4 e aa for her loss anaw r her stiff ceremonious parties elac exactly aly I 1 as h hafg slister had done before her time wore X t and she died but not before she had provided provide 4 for for appearances which she did by sellin selling g her house and costly furniture to a distant purchaser the people immediately adjacent might think thinh he inherited it and leaving her cottage collage far away with a small annuity to the old married couple who had bad aerie d her family so faith faithfully fally she then devoted the remainder of her effects to jerown her own funeral which was waa to be as splendid as the mone money y could provide thus having made preparation to be deposited in the family vault she died fully satisfied that she had kept up appearances to the last some fifty years ago a young man who found himself himself the last of his family with the small remainder of a once splendid fortune which had been squandered by a few showy generations until it descended to him in the shape of about six hundred a year shuddered as he looked at the paltry sum that was to keep him in the fashionable circle to which he was so much attached and out of which he would have ceased to exist his hi carriage must be put down that admirable conveyance the envy of his brother beaux his embroidered coats the admiration of the world the fashionable world would be ridiculous without all the luxurious adjuncts of servants carriages ac six hundred a year could not do it despair seized him at the idea of cutting off a single sin gle domestic from his establishment orone f frog I 1 rog from his coat poat he knew too 60 wll well that the lynx eyes of his dear fraternity would perceive the defalcation in an instant and triumph in his declension his elife having been hitherto spent in in pondering on the color of his bis chariot bind nd cutting out paper patterns for his tailor he felt that he could only live as he had lived or die he was feeble minded but honorable to get in into t 0 debt was repugnant to td his bis feelings as a gentleman and he also knew that such a course I 1 would soon overwhelm him with disgrace ile he pondered upon suicide how that he might die without the fading of a single ray from his glory but he fells fel poignantly what a loss he would be to his followers follow r ers and the badu monde by whom he was waa looked upon as a pure arid and unquestionable pattern card amid such dark thoughts a sudden light broke I 1 in upon him his resolve was taken bright and happy thought if he could not nob shine all his life he would shine half he would illuminate this earth but as a un sun t appearing brighter from its occasional absence which left the world ip darkness I 1 this strange resolve he accordingly put in practice by informing all whom it might con aern that he intended to travel abroad to improve his hio taste not in in articles of orby antiquarian research but in studying the elegance ol 01 of manners and costume he continued continue the gayest of the gay during daring the remainder of fashionable the season in the metropolis then flitt flirted flitted edno no one ofle knew whither anano one had a 4 rigia to ask ase he had no living relative and the friendship among beaux is of that quiet candle that they feel no en thu siam except ra in a crowd and their knowledge led A e of each other is only of the outside time wore on and tailors and corset makers had become busy london again kopd opened ned its eyes and ati fashionable season hail had commenced returned our hero where he had been no one knew where lie he came from no 0 one o cared but there he agthe ornament ornament of his circle the admired of the admired he was no 1 before the rainbow of fashion again faded from the sky of ton he be vanished like a creation of the brain brah T or I 1 the brainless tailors sighed i and carriage guil builders ders mourned season after season came and went so did he age crept on him but he still maintained his supremacy among fools rhe me hanging of his a word sword and the tie of his hig I 1 cravat were patterns his minner manner of taking snuff wai was attained by very f few ew but bat to approach him was excellence and so did he keep up appear appearances ancAs until he disappeared but the secret I 1 of his being able to ke keep ep such an appearance was w as this and it is no fiction that I 1 am penning at the end of each of his performances for forman mances cefi or seasons his hi s carriage wai wa F packed and his borrowed valet discharged with hi his hotel bill his embroideries were laid in la vender lavender and he departed into the depth of the cloud that shadowed borgia which was a humble cottage near 11 ear the seaside sea side where he boarded with a decent couple during his hia eclipse and amused himself indis in his banishment by cutting out puzzlers for bit bis tailor in paper thus he lived a harmless silly rife life a victim to keeping r up appearance nee and died satisfied that he had gained g immortal ima glory in the fashionable world by his tact in mine come professions the keeping up appearances is most essential though commonly understood der stood and hardly wearing a veil the young medical practitioner must keep up an appearance he can scarcely ever succeed without a carriage A wet umbrella and muddy boots bespeak want of ability consequently bis arrangements for home enst be limited to t 9 pay f for or his horses corn and carriage wheels his house therefore is like that which you see in a pantomime painted on the scene there are window curtains bli ds brass cages and brass plates la belled day and night but if you were admitted through thin the door you would find the same empty void that exists in the aforesaid pantomime nime house all this delusion is quite I 1 necessary in the everyday every day world and he be could not rise without it many a young chemist and druggist draggist is forced for the sake of keeping up appearances to lavish the whole of his little funds fund 8 in his hie shop in hirm harmless less rowa rows of bottles and jars perfectly innocent of contents but la belled with names denoting all the horrors of medicine his inner room |