There is yet another form of entertainment which Emulous Ostentation has destroyed. A few years ago there still were women in London who could hold a "salon." Of these gatherings the principal attraction was the hostess, and, in a secondary degree, the agreeableness of the people whom she could gather round her. Of fuss and finery, decoration and display, there was absolutely nothing. A typical instance of what I mean will perhaps recur to the memory of some who read this chapter. Picture to yourself two not very large and rather dingy rooms. The furniture is dark and old-fashioned--mahogany and rosewood, with here and there a good cabinet or a French armchair. No prettiness of lace and china; no flowers; and not very much light. Books everywhere, some good engravings, a comfortable sofa, and a tray of tea and coffee. That was all. It is difficult to conceive a less ostentatious or a more economical mode of entertaining; yet the lady who presided over that "salon" had been for fifty years one of the most celebrated women in Europe; had been embraced by Napoleon; had flirted with the Allied Sovereigns; had been described by Byron; had discussed scholarship with Grote, and statecraft with Metternich; had sate to Lawrence, and caballed with Antonelli. Even in old age and decrepitude she opened her rooms to her friends every evening in the year, and never, even in the depths of September, found her court deserted. Certainly it was a social triumph, and one has only to compare it with the scene in the stockbroker's saloon--the blaze of electric light, the jungle of flowers, the furniture from Sinclair's, the pictures from Christie's--and to contrast the assembled guests. Instead of celebrities, notorieties--woman at once under-dressed and over-dressed; men with cent. per cent. written deep in every line of their expressive countenances; and, at the centre of the throng, a hostess in a diamond crown, who conducts her correspondence by telegraph, because her spelling is a little shaky and mistakes in telegrams are charitably attributed to the clerks. One of the worst properties of Emulous Ostentation is that it naturally affects its victims with an insatiable thirst for money. If Mrs. Tymmyns in Onslow Gardens is to have as good a dinner, and as smart a victoria, and as large a tiara, as her friend Mrs. Goldbug in Park Lane, it is obvious that Mr. Tymmyns must find the money somehow. Who wills the end wills the means; and, if social exigencies demand a larger outlay, the Tymmynses cannot afford to be too scrupulous about their method of providing for it. I suppose it is this consideration which makes us just now a nation of gamblers, whereas our more respectable but less adventurous fathers were well content to be a nation of shopkeepers.