my inventive genius in attempts to produce a head-gear which
should at once protect the ears, confine the hair, and let the
skull alone. I regret to say that my experiments were an utter
failure, notwithstanding the amount of science and skill brought
to bear upon them. One idea lay at the basis of all my endeavors.
Every combination, however elaborate or intricate, resolved
into its simplest elements, consisted of a pair of rosettes
laterally to keep the ears warm, a bag posteriorly to put the
hair into, and some kind of a string somewhere to hold the
machine together. Every possible shape into which lace or
muslin or sheeting could be cut or plaited or sewed or twisted,
into which crewel or cord could be crocheted or netted or
tatted, I make bold to declare was essayed, until things came
to such a pass that every odd bit of dry good lying round the
house was, in the absence of any positive testimony on the
subject, assumed to be one of my nightcaps; an utterly baseless
assumption, because my achievements never went so far as
concrete capuality, but stopped short in the later stages of
abstract idealism. However, prejudice is stronger than truth;
and, as I said, every fragment of every fabric that could not
give an account of itself was charged with being a nightcap
till it was proved to be a dish-cloth or a cart-rope. I at
length surrendered at discretion, and remembered that somewhere
in my reading I had met with exquisite lace caps, and I did not
that from the combined fineness and strength of their material
they might answer the purpose, even if in form they should not
be everything that was desirable,--and I determined to
ascertain, if possible, whether such things existed anywhere
out of poetry.