"Barbaric pomp and gold" is a fine
thing; but a medallion, as heavy and as cumbrous as a shield, appended
to a lady's bosom, would be any thing but a luxury. So, in the other
extreme, a watch should not be so small as to render the dial-plate
illegible; nor should a shoe be so tight as to lame its wearer for life.
Beauty, it has been said, should learn to suffer; and there are, I am
aware, resources in vanity, that will reconcile man, and woman too, to
martyrdom; but these resources should not be exhausted wantonly; and in
pleasure, as in economy, there is no benefit in lighting the candle at
both ends. The true philosopher extracts the greatest good out of every
thing; and fools only, as Horace has it, run into one vice in trying to
avoid another. Let not the reader, from these remarks, suppose that
their author is a morose censurer of the times; or that the least sneer
is intended against that idol of all orthodoxy "things as they are." As
a general proposition, nothing can be more true, than that whatever is
established, even in the world of fashion, is, for the time being,
wisest, discreetest, best; and, woe betide the man that flies too
directly in its face.
There is, however, one point upon which I own myself a little sore; and
in which, I do think, superfluities are carried to a somewhat vicious
excess.
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