as
to-day, in a vogue. The inability of the masses to follow a fashion of
the upper classes, both for lack of means and permission to do so; the
absence of all rapid methods of communication between sections of
country within and without national borders, with the consequent
limitations of a knowledge of men and things to community affairs, and
the paucity of manufacturing possibilities, all combined to make
fashions permanent. With the awakening of the vigorous barbarian
tribes of Europe to a knowledge of their power, and their rapid
civilization, came the frenzied desire of men new to the situation, to
crowd as much as possible into the span of life.
Rome
rioted in the accumulations of ages. With an appetite whetted by an
heredity of unsatisfied desire, she drank the finest vintages and
gourmandized the choicest morsels of the world, immune from present
punishment for excess by a long ancestry of hard and simple life. Every
land that she could reach, sent to her the best of all their products,
and from the incoming tide of things new to her experience, she adopted
many fashions, among them that
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