general history, it must be conceded, that it is quite impossible to add
one more superfluous meal to those already established by general usage.
So also in matters of dress, ladies' hats must not be larger than the
actual doorways of the country will admit--not at least until time is
allowed for a corresponding increase in our architectural proportions.
With respect to personal ornaments also, ear-rings must not be so
weighty as to tear the lobes of the ears; nor should a bracelet prevent,
by its size, the motions of the arm. "Barbaric pomp and gold" is a fine
thing; but a medallion, as heavy and as cumbrous as a shield, appended
to a lady's bosom, would be any thing but a luxury. So, in the other
extreme, a watch should not be so small as to render the dial-plate
illegible; nor should a shoe be so tight as to lame its wearer for life.
Beauty, it has been said, should learn to suffer; and there are, I am
aware, resources in vanity, that will reconcile man, and woman too, to
martyrdom; but these resources should not be exhausted wantonly; and in
pleasure, as in economy, there is no benefit in lighting the candle at
both ends. The true philosopher extracts the greatest good out of every
thing; and fools only, as Horace has it, run into one vice in trying to
avoid another. Let not the reader, from these remarks, suppose that
their author is a morose censurer of the times; or that the least sneer
is intended against that idol of all orthodoxy "things as they are." As
a general proposition, nothing can be more true, than that whatever is
established, even in the world of fashion, is, for the time being,
wisest, discreetest, best; and, woe betide the man that flies too
directly in its face.

There is, however, one point upon which I own myself a little sore; and
in which, I do think, superfluities are carried to a somewhat vicious
excess. The point to which I allude, and I beg the patience of the
reader, is the vast increase of superfluities, which of late years have