Essay On Luxury Living
Luxury may be defined as indulgence in such costly pleasures as magnificent equipages and furniture, splendid dresses, exquisite food, and old wine. The rich Romans at the end of the Republic and under the Empire, were famous or notorious for their extravagant luxury. They spent fabulous sums on Sumptuous banquets and drank wine out of gold cups studded with precious stones. The wealth they had acquired by the conquest of the world was squandered in the purchase of magnificent villas, Greek work of art, Babylonian carpets, and slaves carefully educated to minister to all their pleasures.
In the Europe of the early Middle Ages, exception Italy, the rich had few opportunities of wasting much money on luxuries, as owing to want of commerce, every nation had to content itself for the most part with its own productions. So the great nobles in England. France. and Germany spent their surplus wealth on the building of strong castles and the maintenance of numerous retainers.
But with the spread of commerce at the time of Renaissance. a taste for luxury was developed, such as we see exemplified in the famous Field of the Cloth of Gold, where many French nobles are said to have carried their manors on their backs.
Owing to the increase of trade and progress in the mechanical arts, the desire for comfort has become much more general during the last two or three centuries: and many things that in the fifteenth century were regarded as luxuries are now necessaries of life, which even the poorest labourer could not forego without feeling a sense of deprivation. In England and in America we hear of immense sums of money being spent on the pleasures of the intellect and of the senses, and the cultivation of luxury in the nineteenth century probably exceeds the most lavish expenditure of all previous periods of the world's history. Inside the strong castle& of the old English barons there was far less of comfort than is to be found in a middle-class house at the present day.
The wealthy and refined successors of the hardy warriors who carried the red cross of England into the heart of France. live in a style of luxury that would be condemned as effeminacy, if it were not often combined with love of field sports and great political energy.
Let us consider for a moment Penrhyn Castle, one of the many palaces of the English aristocracy lately described in successive numbers of the Illustrated London News. Although built in the nineteenth century, in external appearance it resembles on old Norman Castle. But the interior is as different as possible from anything ever dreamt of by the old Norman nobles. The walls of the dining-room, on which hang priceless paintings of the Old Masters, are ornamented with a magnificent carved dado, and the ceiling is all brown and gold. Still grander is the drawing-room. the fan-shaped costliest silk and velvet, and sparkle with diamonds and rubies.
and dresses worn by the ladies eclipses the magnificence of the surroundings in which they are displayed. Their robes are of the assemble on festive occasion, when the splendour of the jewellery
ceiling is white. In rooms such as these the aristocracy of England on the walls is in different shades of brown, and the richly embossed the fireplace is made of black marble, the furniture of black wood,
and magnificent mirrors are set in black arches.
The costly tapestry the drawing-room is a small room called the ebony room, because the finest pictures would only obscure their magnificence. Next to
The walls of crimson and gold in this room are so magnificent that arches of the ceiling of which are described as glistening with gold.
Out-of-doors the same luxury prevails. The wife of an American millionaire lately bought a mantle of black fox skin that cost £2,800. and the Empress of Russia is said to possess a fur cloak five times as valuable. The carriages in London, Paris, and New York, move so smoothly, on finely constructed springs, that their occupants do not feel slightest jerk as they speed through the crowded streets.
On the railways the wealthy travel in Pullman ears. which are repetitions on wheels of their own luxurious drawing- rooms, and they cross the ocean in steamers like floating places. At Ii the great hotels which they patronise on their travels they can buy every comfort and convenience that modern science and art have invented. They bathe in marble baths, dine and read by the mellow light of electric lamps, and are saved by hydraulic lifts from the trouble of walking up and down stairs.
Such are some of the broader and more striking features of modern European luxury; but they give only a faint idea of the immense variety of the luxuries that wealth can now purchase in the great centres of western civilisation. The best way to realise this great variety, which distinguishes modern European luxury from the luxury of ancient times and from Oriental luxury, is carefully to observe the shops of London, or even, failing that, so much of their reflected glory as many appear in the display of goods made by the• European shops in the great commercial cities.
Luxury may be defined as indulgence in such costly pleasures as magnificent equipages and furniture, splendid dresses, exquisite food, and old wine. The rich Romans at the end of the Republic and under the Empire, were famous or notorious for their extravagant luxury. They spent fabulous sums on Sumptuous banquets and drank wine out of gold cups studded with precious stones. The wealth they had acquired by the conquest of the world was squandered in the purchase of magnificent villas, Greek work of art, Babylonian carpets, and slaves carefully educated to minister to all their pleasures.
In the Europe of the early Middle Ages, exception Italy, the rich had few opportunities of wasting much money on luxuries, as owing to want of commerce, every nation had to content itself for the most part with its own productions. So the great nobles in England. France. and Germany spent their surplus wealth on the building of strong castles and the maintenance of numerous retainers.
But with the spread of commerce at the time of Renaissance. a taste for luxury was developed, such as we see exemplified in the famous Field of the Cloth of Gold, where many French nobles are said to have carried their manors on their backs.
Owing to the increase of trade and progress in the mechanical arts, the desire for comfort has become much more general during the last two or three centuries: and many things that in the fifteenth century were regarded as luxuries are now necessaries of life, which even the poorest labourer could not forego without feeling a sense of deprivation. In England and in America we hear of immense sums of money being spent on the pleasures of the intellect and of the senses, and the cultivation of luxury in the nineteenth century probably exceeds the most lavish expenditure of all previous periods of the world's history. Inside the strong castle& of the old English barons there was far less of comfort than is to be found in a middle-class house at the present day.
The wealthy and refined successors of the hardy warriors who carried the red cross of England into the heart of France. live in a style of luxury that would be condemned as effeminacy, if it were not often combined with love of field sports and great political energy.
Let us consider for a moment Penrhyn Castle, one of the many palaces of the English aristocracy lately described in successive numbers of the Illustrated London News. Although built in the nineteenth century, in external appearance it resembles on old Norman Castle. But the interior is as different as possible from anything ever dreamt of by the old Norman nobles. The walls of the dining-room, on which hang priceless paintings of the Old Masters, are ornamented with a magnificent carved dado, and the ceiling is all brown and gold. Still grander is the drawing-room. the fan-shaped costliest silk and velvet, and sparkle with diamonds and rubies.
and dresses worn by the ladies eclipses the magnificence of the surroundings in which they are displayed. Their robes are of the assemble on festive occasion, when the splendour of the jewellery
ceiling is white. In rooms such as these the aristocracy of England on the walls is in different shades of brown, and the richly embossed the fireplace is made of black marble, the furniture of black wood,
and magnificent mirrors are set in black arches.
The costly tapestry the drawing-room is a small room called the ebony room, because the finest pictures would only obscure their magnificence. Next to
The walls of crimson and gold in this room are so magnificent that arches of the ceiling of which are described as glistening with gold.
Out-of-doors the same luxury prevails. The wife of an American millionaire lately bought a mantle of black fox skin that cost £2,800. and the Empress of Russia is said to possess a fur cloak five times as valuable. The carriages in London, Paris, and New York, move so smoothly, on finely constructed springs, that their occupants do not feel slightest jerk as they speed through the crowded streets.
On the railways the wealthy travel in Pullman ears. which are repetitions on wheels of their own luxurious drawing- rooms, and they cross the ocean in steamers like floating places. At Ii the great hotels which they patronise on their travels they can buy every comfort and convenience that modern science and art have invented. They bathe in marble baths, dine and read by the mellow light of electric lamps, and are saved by hydraulic lifts from the trouble of walking up and down stairs.
Such are some of the broader and more striking features of modern European luxury; but they give only a faint idea of the immense variety of the luxuries that wealth can now purchase in the great centres of western civilisation. The best way to realise this great variety, which distinguishes modern European luxury from the luxury of ancient times and from Oriental luxury, is carefully to observe the shops of London, or even, failing that, so much of their reflected glory as many appear in the display of goods made by the• European shops in the great commercial cities.
No comments:
Post a Comment