Burlington free press. [volume] (Burlington, Vt.) 1827-1865, 1854-05-19
Fashion,.
Fashion.
from Dickens' Hnu.ehold Words |

lfrom Dlckens HousenOlu W orus
What are the law. of fashion, and who
makes them Who regulates their absurdi
ties and their proprietics' 1t was the height
of fashion in Charles the Second 5 time to dis
play about four inches of white shirt between
the waistband and the vest now, if | We're
to enter ballroom with my shirt bulging
from the bottom of my waistcoat, | should be
bowed down stairs Why should fashion in
sixteen hundred and sixty-three be beauty,
and be Improperly in eighteen hundred and
fifty-threel Can anything he more absurd
than the chimney-pot hat Nothing. Yet,
if you were to meet Inc in Regent street with
a hunting cap, shovel hat, a sombrero, or a
porringer like that which Henry of Lancaster
wore-would you speak to me The day after
tomorrow velvet skulls, shovel hats, hyhaps,
or rabbit-skin porringers may be the only
wear. Why should the bishops refuse to or
dain Oliver Goldsmith, because he wore scar
let breeches What are wigs, boots, colors,
fashionable virtues, fashionable follies, fash
ionable vices, bon ton, high breeding, worth,
after all Will they save the sprightliness
of youth, the fair cheeks and full eyes of
childhood, the yigorousness and strong hex-
ture of the joints of twenty-five, from the hol-
lowness and deadly paleness. the loathsome-
ness and horror of three days burial -
Will they avail one iot in the day when
you ana anu all tne WOrlu, nODles ana learn
ed, kings and priests, the wise and the fool
ish, the rich and the poor, the prevailing ty
rant and the oppressed party shall appear to
receive their symbol Will Fashion and
Madame Devy and the Red-book keep the
storm from the ship, or furrow from the
brow, or the plague from King house -
Is the world any better for fashion, and could
not it move toward its end without fashion,
do YOU think
Fashion dies. 1t is SO fara prince or a rich man
that while it lives dress it up in purple
and fine linen, and fall down and worship II,
and quarrel with and hate our brothers and
sisters, for a smile from our demi-god, for
card for Fashion balls or the entree 10 Fash
ion's backstairs. But no sooner is the demi-
god dead than we utterly desert and forget it.
We do not condcscend, as in the case OF dead
| humanity, to fold its rottenncss in gold aud
! crimson velvet, to build II marble monument
above it, culptured all over with lies to
state in an inscription that beneath repose the
ashes of such and such most noble, high,
mighty, powerful Prince Fashion, who was
father to his subjects, and model to his COM
/ peers, and was in short the very best Fashion
that ever was known, and the first fashionable
gentleman in the world No, we allow the
corpse OF Fashion 10 putrely in the gutter, or
u he eaten up by the NulturcS, aud the storks,
and adiutHnt birds There have been kings
/ treated as cavalcrly. Nhen the luxurious
. Louis Qun2e lay at the point of death, the
I - rise ol the couItioIs desvrting their monarch
10 pay their respects to the new king echoed
! through the long galleries of Versailles like
/ thunder When the king was dead they cram
med hi- miserable body Che died OF tie most
horrible form of small-pox) into a box, and
.iolttd him oil IN post chpise 10y night to St,
/ Dennis, where they flung him into rather than
buried him in the sepulchre of his ancestors,
50 40 we act by our King hshion-adding
even insult to injury, iur after his death we
scott and ieer at him, and are tremendously
satirical upon the ridiculous, hideous, fright
I iul, prepos ferrous fashion that he was 1t is
my opinion that if Mcssers Banting and
France We're To contnc themselves to perform
ing the funerals of Fashion, they would cease
to he the fashionable undertakcls they are.
Fashion is greater than king OF kuiSer when
he is alive; but dead he Is ot no more account
than a broken cgs shell, h. ~, ost mort
rire te roF Leg oi mutton sleeves and short
waists nre dead Long live tight sleeves and
long waists
q lnERr IS an inscription ON q tombstone
nj Ia Point, Lake superior, which rcads as
follows 4" ions puulIr>, accidentally ,L"t