Litchfield enquirer., 1837-08-17
FASHIONABLE RoLLIRs.

know how neither to toll nor spin, who are I yet clothed like the lilies of the vslley-who 1 thrum the piano, and, few of the more dainty, the harp-wlIo walk, as the Bible ] says, softly-who have read romances, and l some of them seen the interior of theatres 1 who have been admired ut the examina- 1 tion oftheir high school, who have wrought algebraic solutions on the black board, who ! are, in short, the very roses of the garden, the altar of life, who yet, kOrrescO rcfere"s, ! can never expect to be married, pr if mar 1 ried, to live withonl-shall speak or for bear ?-patting their own lily hands to domestic drudgery.
 We go into the interior villages of our re- cent wooden country. The fair ono sits 1 down to clink the wires of the piano. We see the fingers displayed on the keys, which we are sure never prepared dinner, nor made garment for her robust brothers.- We traverse the streets of our cities, and the wires of the piano are thrummed in our ears from every considerable house.
 Ask the fair one, when she has beaten all the music out of the keys, pretty fair one, canst talk to thy old and sick father, so as to beguile him of the headache and rhea-
 matism? Thou art chemist, remember at the examination; canst compound, pre-.
 pare, and afterwards boil, or bake good pudding? Canst make one of the hundred subordinae ornaments of thy fair person
 In short tell us thy use in existence, except to be contemplated as a pretty picture And how long will any one be amused with the view of picture after having surveyed it dozen times, unless it have mind, a heart, and we may emphatically add, the perennial value of utility ?
 Display, notoriety, surface, and splendor |-these are the first aims of the mothers and can we expect that the daughters will drink ia better spirit2 To play, sing, dress, glide down the dance, and get hus- band, is the lesson; not to be qualified to render his home quiet, well-ordered, and happy. It is notorious, that there will soon be no intermediate class between those who toll and spin, and those whose claim to be ladies is founded on their being incapable of any value of utility. All clearly within the purview of the term lady, estimate the clearness of their ti;le precisely in tho ratio of their uselessness.
 Allow young lady to have any hand in the adjustment of all the components of her dress, each of which has contour which only the fleeting fashion of the moment can settle; allow her time to receive morning visitants, and prepare for afternoon ap- pointments and evening parties, and what time has the dear one to spare to be use- full and do good7 There is somewhere in all this, an enormous mscalculatioD, an in- finite mischief-an evil as we shall attempt to show, not transitory or minor impor- tance, but fraught with misery and ruin, not only to the fair ones themselves, but to so- ciety and the age. We may assume, as we have, that thero are in the United States hundred thousand young ladies brought up to do nothing. ex- cept dress and pursue amusement. Anoth- 1 CT hundred thousand learn music, dancing, I and what are called the fashionable ac- complishments. The few opulens, who 1 can afford to be good for nothing, precede. l Another class presses as closely as they l can upon their steps: and the contagious mischief spreads downward, till the fond father, who lays every thing under contri- button to fus nish the means of purchasing l piano, and hiring music master for his ! daughters, instead of being served, when he comes in from the plough, by tho ruined favorites for whom he has sacrificed SO ! much, finds that servant must be hired for | the young ladies.
 Every one knows that mothers and daughters give the tone and laws to society. Here is the root of the matter, the spring of bitter waters-here is the origin of the complaint of hard times-here is the rea- son why every man lives up to his income, and so many beyond it. He has married a wife whose vanity and extravaganza are fathomless, and his ruin is explained.-l Hence the general and prevalent evil of the present times, extravagance-consciO l shame of the thought of being industrious and useful. Every body is ashamed not to be expensive and fashionable; and every one seems equally ashamed of honesty and industry.
 I have no conception of beautiful wo- man, or fine man, in whose eye, in whose port, in whose whole expression. this sen- timent does not stand embodied :-'I am called by my Creator to duties; I have employment on the earth my sterrer but more enduring pleasures are in diseharg- ing nay du,ies.'
 Compare the sedatc expression of this sentiment in the coun.enance of man or woman, when it is known to stand, as the index of character and the fact, with the superficial gaudiness of simple, good for nothing belle, who disdains usefulness and employment, whose empire is a ballroom, and whose subject dandies, as silly and as useless as herself. Who, of the two has
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