Whatever refinement there may be in the upper classes is only a survival, an element that is not being preserved, but is rapidly waning. Their general disposition and influence is a source of anxiety to many who are watching the signs of the times with attention. A recent article in the _National Review_ sounded a grave note of warning. “Inherited vitality of race,” said the writer, “which upper-class women still preserve until they dissipate it in keeping up with the procession, is frittered away by parental irresponsibility, often commencing before birth, and by the ever-increasing excitement, restlessness, and luxury of our generation.... Greed of money is unblushing, and perhaps most shameless amongst mothers and daughters.... Plutocracy and vanity are in possession.” Out of such poor stuff, he concludes, no man of character or ability can come forward in public life. Another significant result of the kind of life of continual excitement, constant change, combined with sensuous ease, led by these people, is the noticeably declining birth-rate among those who are well off. It is not worth while here to enter into a diatribe against the habits and customs, the fashions and fancies, of what is known as Smart Society, which is the general aggregate of people of affluence; or attempt to describe the various sets, the life struggle for those in one grade to lift themselves into what they think a higher and smarter grade; the necessary qualifications to enter this society; the wild and ceaseless hunger for excitement and amusement which prevents any time being allowed for reflection, reading, or even ordered thought; the cynical and inane quality of the intercourse; the endless gossip; the contempt for anything that is considered dowdy; the accepted low level of morality and network of irregular relationships; the snobbishness, the artificiality, the want of education; in fact, all the low standard of living down to which any set of human beings is bound to fall if the key-note of their existence is idleness and the foundation of their position is money. They are frightened of thought because it might plunge them into desperation, they are frightened of knowledge because it might dispel their dearest illusions, they are frightened of work because it might reveal their incompetence, they are frightened of progress because it may shatter their citadel.