532 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



Nov. 



CatJus' Pcpartment. 



DRESS. 



[Horace Mann, in liis lectures on •woman, thus 

 treats this subject :] 



Is the world a Lunatic Hospital, that sometimes 

 a lady's dress should be twice her height,and anon 

 but half of it ; that sometimes it should expand 

 to the orbit of a farthingale, (when surely there 

 was no want of amplitude in "woman's sphere,") 

 and then be shrunken in swaddling-bands ; that 

 sometimes it should be trailed downwards to sweep 

 the earth, and then built up, turret-like, on the 

 top of the head, — so that, as Addison said of the 

 women of his time, their faces were in the middle 

 of them ; and that sometimes the neck should be 

 be-ruffed and be-puffed in the Elizabethan style, 

 and then laid bare, with a vast anatomical mis- 

 take as to its nether boundary. This last unseem- 

 liness happens to be the shame of our day. When 

 that Turkish officer, Amin Bey, on his late visit to 

 this country, attended some fashionable parties at 

 Washington, he remarked, that on going into our 

 society, he expected to see as many of American 

 ladies, but not as much. The more private expo- 

 sures of the ^lodel Artists were broken up as a 

 scandal ; but they have amply revenged themselves 

 by taking many other spirits worse than the first, 

 and going on public exhibition at Carusi's and Pa- 

 panti's, at all assemblies and ball-rooms. 



I regard this monthly lunacy, too,in the changes 

 of dress, as even more reprehensible in its mo- 

 tives than distasteful in its forms. The ignoble 

 purpose is to make a display of superior wealth or 

 to arrogate a higher caste, and thus to enforce up- 

 on others a sense of inferiority. Now, such mo- 

 tives, or emotions, all benevolent and Christian 

 hearts must repudiate with abhorrence. It is the 

 first impulse of a truly noble man, to temper him- 

 self to the condition of the inferiors whom he meets. 

 He seeks to assuage the envy of bad minds, and 

 the mortification of good ones, at the contrasts be- 

 tween his riches and their poverty, his elevation 

 and their lowliness. A benevolent person will 

 never put on airs of learning before the illiterate, 

 nor of knowledge before the ignorant. He does 

 not habit himself in his richest, but in the poorest 

 garb, when he is to meet the humble and lowly in 

 their mean attire. I would forbear to speak of my 

 keen eye-sight in the presence of the blind, to 

 make known my acute hearing to the deaf, and I 

 would moderate my steps in passing a lame man, 

 so that the painful idea of his own privation need 

 not be forced upon him. There is no littleness 

 more little, or despicableness more despicable, than 

 the ostentation of covetable qualities before the 

 consciously inferior. However high a man may 

 seem to be raised by any enviable attribute or pos- 

 session, the meanness of striving^o make it an os- 

 tentation or a boast, proves that his real nature is 

 antipodal to the accidents of his position. Yet 

 these contemptible and criminal motives in regard 

 to dress are the very life and power of that hol- 

 low Olympus, where dwell the lawgivers of fash- 

 ion. In these motives originate those changes of 

 dress, which come, as other lunacies were once 

 supposed to come, with a change of the moon. 

 Hence the discarding of a dress, as soon as it is, 

 seen to be worn or imitated by those in a supposed 

 inferior condition. Hence, too, the low malice of 



equipping a servant in the costume of a rival "La- 

 dy Patroness ;" and the spirit, equally low, that 

 cares for it. Among the infinite of remorses and 

 mortifications which will throng around the death- 

 bed and the judgment-day, will there be anything 

 that can make the offender feel quite so mean, as 

 the retrospect and exposure of a life spent in the 

 vulgar ostentation of dress, and in striving to 

 make fellow-beings feel inferior for no better rea- 

 son than because they happened to be clothed from 

 a difierent set of animals and plants'?" 



33ow's Department. 



A LESSON IN GRAMMAR. 

 Of parts of speech, grammarians say, 



The number is but nine, 

 Whether we speak of men or things, 



Hear, see, smell, feel or dine. 



And first we'll speak of that called iVown, 



Because on it are founded 

 All the ideas we receive, 



And principals are grounded. 



A noun's a name of anything, 



Of person, place, or nation; 

 As man and tree, and all we see 



That stand still or have motion. 



The Articles are A and The, 

 By which these nouns we limit; 



A tree, the man, a pot, the pan, 

 A spoon with which to skim it. 



The Adjective then tells the kind 



Of everything called Noun ; 

 Good boys or bad, girls ^tad or sad, 



A large or a S7nall town. 



The Nouns can also agents be, 

 And Verbs express their actions ; 



Boys run and ivalk, girls laugh anil talk, 

 Read, write, tell wholes or fractions. 



To modify those Verbs again, 



The Adverb fits most neatly ; 

 As James correctly always writes, 



And Jane she sings so sweetly. 



The Pronoun shortens what we say, 



And takes the place of names, 

 With /, thou, he, she, we, you, they, 



Where sentences we frame. 



Conjunctions next we bring to join 



These sentences together ; 

 As John and James may go to town, 



Jf it should prove good weather. 



With Nouns and Pronouns we have need 



To use the Preposition ; 

 Which set before or placed between, 



Expresses their position. 



The Interjection helps to express 



Our joy and sorrow too. 

 As when we shout hurrah ! or cry 



Alas ! what shall we do .'' 



ANECDOTE OF ISAAC T. HOPPER. 



[Mrs. Childs, in her life of this excellent Qua- 

 ker, relates the following incident :] 



Isaac and his elder brother were accustomed to 

 set traps in the woods to catch partridges. One 

 day when he was about six years old, he went to 

 look at the traps early in the morning, and find- 

 ing his empty, he took a plump partridge from hie 



