Page:Lady Barbarity; a romance (IA ladybarbarityrom00snai).pdf/173

 myself up against the evening. I had out a new exquisite gown, that was only yesterday from the tailors, and a very lovely modish article. And what a virginity there is about on unworn dress! How unwrinkled and serene is its countenance; how chaste and creaseless in its outward semblance! What a wooing look it hath with which to provoke the eye and mind of Millamant! Its graces wedded to her own, and where's the bosom to resist that combination of art and nature? Once on, however, and the nap is off the velvet of your dress and your desire also. The thing is not so perfect as it seemed. The armpit chafes you; there is a gusset out of place; it is a twenty-fifth of an inch too low of neck, or a twenty-fifth of an inch too high. The sleeve is too much like a pyramid, or not enough so. And you fear it is just two days behind the time. You would return it to the tailor on the instant, only—only you so crave to wear it this very night. Then you recall that all your others have been similar; fair and smiling failures; in the wardrobe supreme and flawless; on the body detestable and tight. You wear it three times; it begins to cleave to you like a friend, when lo! the silk frays, the lilac fades, the mode's beyond it. I suppose a perfect robe ne'er will be fashioned till Nature fashions a perfect wearer. Your pardon, reader, but I am as privileged and fit to soliloquise upon a dress, I take it, as a poet is upon the stars, or a philosopher upon the dust and destination of his uncle. ''Ohe! jam satis est.''