CHAPTER XIV.

FASHION.

REMARK OF CECIL-DEVOTION OF FEMALES TO FASHION-GREAT MEN AND WOMEN DID NOT HAVE FASHIONABLE MOTHERS- THE DAUGHTER OF HENRY LAURENS MARY LYON ON WEARING THIN SHOES AND COTTON HOSE"-GIRLS KILLING THEMSELVES FOR FASHION -TESTIMONY OF PHYSICIANS DR. COGAN A WASTE OF TIME A LADY AT A HOTEL -WHAT MRS. OSSOLI SAW FASHION DESTROYS TASTE FOR INTELLECTUAL AND MORAL THINGS-ENGENDERS SELFISHNESS-SICK ROOM AND BALL ROOM SACRIFICES MADE FOR FASHION OF MONEY AND LA. BORTORTURES ENDURED FOR IT, AS EARS BORED, FEET PINCHED, BODIES SQUEEZED AFRICAN WOMEN THE CHINESE INHABITANTS OF NEW GUINEA OUR FASHIONABLES LIKE THEM SUCH REGARD TO FASHION A BARRIER TO SUCCESS-POETRY.

woman

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THE celebrated Cecil once said: "Doing as others do is the prevalent principle of the present female character. This so far as it avails with man or -is the ruin, death, and grave, of all that is noble, and virtuous, and praiseworthy." This is what we mean by fashion: aping styles of dress, manners, and living, which prevail in certain circles. This so far controls the lives of a class of young women as to leave little opportunity for the growth of nobler sentiments in the heart. They are so

much absorbed in this subject as to think or talk

little about anything else.

Listen to their conver

sation, and it is about their

own or others' dresses,

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which are "in fashion,” or old-fashioned," as the case may be, as if it were a subject of the gravest importance. One would infer from their attention. to it, that reputation and happiness both depended upon it. The consequence is that their minds become grovelling, and their hearts selfish. There are few greater foes to the most desirable qualities of female character than this extreme servitude to fashion. It involves frivolity and general lightness of character, that never lead to usefulness or true worth. A very fashionable woman was never known to be very good or very useful. It is also true of all great and good men and women, that they did not have so-called fashionable mothers. The mothers of Lord Bacon, Newton, Halyburton, Doddridge, Wesley, Washington, and many other men of equal fame, were not the slaves of fashion. The same was true of the mothers of Harriet Newell, Lucretia Davidson, and Mary Edwards. Fashionable mothers have too little sense of their responsibility to attend faithfully to the training of their children. Ribbons and ornaments have more value in their estimation than wholesome lessons upon morals and religion.

The daughter of Henry Laurens, who was Pres

ident of the Continental Congress, was brought into contact with the most fashionable society of France, when she resided at Paris with her father. She was at full liberty to be extravagant in yielding to the demands of custom and style, but she did not. On one occasion her father made her a present of five hundred guineas, evidently with the intention of having her conform more to the habits of gay life; but, after appropriating a small part of it to her own use, she purchased a quantity of French Testaments, which she distributed among the poor, and established a school for the instruction of this class, constituting a fund for defraying the annual expenses thereof. Subsequently, she married Dr. Ramsay, the historian of South Carolina, and continued still to live in her unostentatious way. Before her death, she requested that her coffin should be plain, and without a plate. Her conduct contrasts nobly with that of females who not only spend all the means they can command at the shrine of fashion, but sigh for more.

When Mary Lyon was at the head of Mount Holyoke Seminary, she was pained by the devotion of girls to fashion. She had never been guilty of this herself, and had always been aware that the evil prevailed among her sex. But when she had two or three hundred girls from various parts of the Union and from all ranks of society, under her

There are two

charge, she was more impressed than ever with the magnitude of the evil. One day a composition was read on "wearing thin shoes and cotton hose," which is a demand of fashion, otherwise it would be abandoned for the sake of comfort and health. Miss Lyon improved the opportunity to impart some good counsel upon the subject, and said: "When you became members of this school, it was expected you would have maturity of character and moral principle enough to do what was right, without a formal comand. If you had not, it were better by all means that you go to a smaller school for younger persons, where you might receive the peculiar care needed by little girls. things, young ladies, that we expressly say you must not do. One is, that you must not violate the fire laws (alluding to several regulations of the family in regard to fire); the other is, that you must not kill yourselves. If you will persist in killing yourselves by reckless exposure, we are not willing to take the responsibility of the act. We think by all means you had better go home and die in the arms of your dear mothers. Such exposures are a direct violation of the commands of God: "Thou shalt not kill,' and 'thou shalt not steal;' ' for a violation of the first involves a violation of the second, as by it you rob the world of the good you ought to do."

Girls should avoid, as far as possible, foolish, unhealthful, extravagant, vain, and wicked things, if they would do their life-work well; and hence they should never become the slaves of fashion, for this is an aggregation of all these undesirable things.

In the first place, excess of fashion leads to a sacrifice of health. This was the principal reason why Miss Lyon condemned it. Physicians declare that "thin shoes and cotton hose," together with modes of dress observed by females, cause much sickness and premature death. I cannot be otherwise; for, at the bidding of fashion, women will cast aside the most comfortable apparel for that which exposes them to the cold. Furs are not wanted when they are not considered "in style.” Woollen in summer and gauze in winter, is a change very easily wrought by fashion. Dr. Cogan says, "It will render that particular garb, which we once thought so warm and comfortable, hot and insupportable as the sultry dog-days; and it makes the slightest covering, contrary to its pristine nature, remarkably pleasant in the depth of winter. The flowing hair or adjusted ringlets shall, at one period, be considered as becoming and elegant; at another, be rejected as an insufferable mark of effeminacy." These perpetual changes, and disregard of the weather, in female apparel, must be detrimental to health.