Tenacious of its theme. Still, still she thinks
She sees him, and, indulging the fond thought,
Clings yet more closely to the senseless turf,
Nor heeds the passenger who looks that way.”
LOVE OF APPROBATION.
Woman intensely desires admiration, praise, and fame. This quality is an excellent guard upon morals as well as manners. The loss of character, to those largely endowed with it, is worse than death. “It gives,” says Mr. Combe, “the desire to be agreeable to others; it is the drill-serjeant of society, and admonishes us when we deviate too widely from the line of march of our fellows; it induces as to suppress numberless little manifestations of selfishness, and to restrain many peculiarities of temper and disposition, from the dread of incurring disapprobation by giving offence; it is the butt upon which wit strikes, when, by means of ridicule, it drives us from our follies.” A faculty thus beneficial ought to be carefully cultivated. By all means indulge in a generous emulation to excel. Say nothing and do nothing disgraceful. Assume those pleasant modes of action and expression which are calculated to elicit encomiums. Mind appearances in those little matters which win a good name. No sensible man likes to see a slattern; nor admires a wife or sister who appears before him neat and clean, but dressed after the fashion of a charwoman. The Creator has seen fit to give you a fair form, and it is ungrateful to His beneficence not to robe that form in suitable apparel. At the same time, it is well to remember that the epicureanism of the toilet and the patient study of costumial display, are neither female duties, nor primary requisites for a finished woman.
How supremely ridiculous many women are rendered by the excess and perversion of approbativeness. Not long ago young ladies, and some rather old dowagers too, wore little hats with round crowns, and beautiful lace fringe, edged with bugles and fancy bead-work, hanging like a flounce round their eyes. The gauzy medium mightily improved the looks of a certain class; but the beauties soon discovered the disadvantage under which they laboured, and immediately betook themselves to broad brims. As regards bonnets, once they were so large that it was difficult to find the head; then the difficulty was, not to find the head but the thing that was said to cover it. We wish our sisters would always emulate their gracious sovereign, who “wears her bonnet on her head, and pays her bills quarterly.” Mantles seem to us both comfortable and becoming, and we may add economical.
Few faculties require right direction more than this. What multitudes of fathers and husbands have been ruined by daughters and wives whose whole souls were bent on making a sensation. No wonder the gentlemen do not propose. The rich silks of the day cannot be had for a wife and daughters, with the prodigious trimmings that are equally indispensable, under a sum that would maintain a country clergyman or half-pay officer and his family. The paraphernalia of ribbons, laces, fringes, and flowers, is more expensive than the entire gown of ten years ago. The Hon. and Rev. S. G. Osborne, in the Times of Friday, July 23, 1858, says that, as a rule, “the acreage of dress and its value is in monstrous proportion to the persons and purses of the wearers.” As an illustration, we append a selection of items from a Regent Street milliner’s bill for £2,754 0s. 6d., which was proved in the London Bankruptcy Court, in September, 1857. “Bonnet, £12 12s.; sprigged muslin slip, £11 11s.; six embroidered collars, £15 15s.; pocket-handkerchief, £4 4s.; another, £5 5s.; moire antique dress, £10 10s.; ditto, £11 11s.; ditto, £12 12s.; ditto, £13 13s.; ditto, £18 18s.; ditto, £19 19s.; brown muslin dress, £17 17s.; court dress, £51 5s.; ditto, £55 10s.; parasol, £10 10s.; ditto, £18 18s.; point lace cap and pearls, £11 11s.; pair of lappets, £8 8s.; ten buttons, £5; dressing four dolls, £12 12s...!!” Such bills are sufficient to empty the purse of Fortunatus, and ruin Crœsus himself.
“We sacrifice to dress, till household joy
And comforts cease. Dress drains our cellar dry,