He Discourseth of What some Mortals Live for.
“What else do they live for in this world beside?”
What else but for Kittys or one of the same,
Do mothers their daughters at schools give the touch
That leaves them to live as a wife but in name
While position and fashion they frantically clutch.
What else do they live for, our girls so refined,
So forward, precocious, and gifted at ten
They are flirting and courting and things of the kind,
That never came under our grandmother's ken.
At fifteen so dressed up, and hooped up, I ween,
They're mothers full often before they're sixteen,
And fading and dowdy and sickly at twenty,
With one boy in trowsers and two girls in laces
Complaining of starving while dying of plenty
The fate is of ladies in fashionable places.
He Imploreth Mercy upon those condemned with fashionable folly to Marry, and Illustrateth their Condition.
Now heaven in mercy be kind to the wretch,
Who marries for money or fashion or folly;
He'd better accept of the noose of Jack Ketch
Than such a “help-meet;” or at once marry Dolly
The cook, or with Bridget, the maid of the broom;
With one he'd be sure to get coffee and meat,
And never hear whining of nothing to eat,
And 't other would make up his bed and his room;
And if he was blest with a child now and then,
As happens sometimes with your fashionable wives,
Who're coupled to bipeds, in nature called men,
He'd need no insurance to warrant their lives;
And need no expense of a grand “bridal tour,”
Or visit each season at “watering places,”
Where fashion at people well known to be poor,
In money or station, will make ugly faces;
Where women, though married, with roues will flirt;
Where widows, though widows in fresh sable weeds,
Spread nets that entangle like old Nessus' shirt
And finish with Burdell and Cunningham deeds;
Where daughters when fading are taken to spend
A month at the springs, or a week in salt water;
Where bachelors flirting on Ellen attend,
Are whispered by mamma, “engaged to my daughter.”