From the Easy Chair, Volume 2 — A Closer Reading

The Golden Age Is Now

Curtis directly challenges nostalgia in 'The Golden Age,' arguing that the past was no better than the present. He cites Louis XIV's reign, when the king's mistress 'persuaded him to slaughter and banish hundreds of thousands of his subjects' for their faith, while Madame de Sévigné wrote cheerfully of executions: 'Hanging is quite a refreshment to me.' The essay insists that 'the golden age is not yesterday or to-morrow, but to-day.' Curtis does not deny present troubles—'the trouble, vexation, corruption, weakness, selfishness, meanness'—but calls them 'the old lions that have always beset the path.' He asks pointedly: 'If our politics seem mean and our men small, how does Alfred's time seem, or the glory of Athens?' The structure is a series of rhetorical questions that dismantle the reader's assumed superiority of earlier eras.

Suburban Encroachment and Lost Arcadia

In 'Spring Pictures,' Curtis personifies the Easy Chair as a stroller observing the 'pathetic forlornness of the municipal frontier.' Country houses with 'broad piazzas and gardens and lawns' are overtaken by 'streets and stone sidewalks and lamps.' The contrast gives them 'a kind of conscious life' and 'a helpless air.' Curtis imagines the earlier pastoral peace—'the placid river, on which no restless steamer foamed'—and calls it 'El Dorado, Arcadia, the land of Goshen.' Yet he undercuts his own idealization: 'Doubtless in the closets of those quiet houses there were the bones of plenty of old skeletons.' The passage balances lyrical memory with a wry acknowledgment that domestic tragedies occurred even in that imagined paradise.

The Public Scold and Moral Complacency

'The Public Scold' (from the table of contents) is not excerpted, but the pattern of moral critique appears throughout. In 'The New Year,' Curtis notes that Charles Lamb 'says that no one ever regarded the'—the excerpt cuts off, but the essay's opening establishes a rhythm: the midnight 'King is dead' gives way to 'Live the King!' with vows to forgive debts and forget feuds. Yet the tone is skeptical: 'The good vows shall be kept. A blessing shall be wrung from the fleet angel Opportunity.' The conditional 'shall' hints at failure. Curtis uses the Easy Chair persona to observe without preaching, letting contrasts—between hymn and requiem, between resolution and reality—carry the argument. The reader is left to measure the distance between aspiration and act.

Curtis writes as a moralist who distrusts both nostalgia and despair. His essays reward attention to the way he sets up a scene—a New Year's Eve, a suburban walk—only to pivot to a broader reflection. The reader should watch for the moment when the concrete detail opens into argument, and for the dry humor that often accompanies his most pointed observations.