Epicurean women, likewise, abound in every wealthy community. They spend the winter in Florida, New York, or Washington; dividing the rest of the year between the sea-shore, the mountains, and the lakes, with occasional visits to what they call their homes. They must have the best of everything, and assume no responsibility beyond running up bills for their husbands to pay, or to remain unpaid. Their special paradise is foreign travel, and no pension or hotel along the beaten highways of Europe is without its quota of these precious daughters of Epicurus. They flit hither and thither where least ennui and most diversion allures. Two or three years of this irresponsible existence is sufficient to disqualify them for usefulness either in Europe or America, either here or hereafter. When they return, if they ever do, to their native town or city, the drudgery of housekeeping has become intolerable, the responsibilities of social life unendurable, and their poor husbands are glad enough when the restless fit seizes them again and they can be packed off to Egypt, or Russia, or whatever remote corner of the earth remains for their idle hands and restless feet, their empty minds and hollow hearts, to invade with their unearned gold. There is no guarantee that the Epicurean will be the chaste husband of one wife, or a faithful mother, or a good provider for the family, or a devoted citizen of the republic, or a strenuous servant of art or science, or a heroic martyr in the cause of progress and reform. If all men were Epicureans, the world would speedily retrograde into the barbarism and animalism whence it has slowly and painfully emerged. The great interests of the family, the state, society, and civilisation are not accurately reflected in the feelings of the individual; and if the individual has no guide but feeling, he will prove a traitor to such of these higher interests as may have the misfortune to be intrusted to his pleasure-loving, self-indulgent, unheroic hands.