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Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 3, No. 15, August, 1851

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2017
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And tenderly her neck embrace.

"O Innocence! sweet child's existence!
This have I learnt, through God's assistance,
He who possesses thee is wise,
And valued in the Almighty's eyes."

"Valued" is doubtless a stronger word in the original German, but it may have been difficult to render into our vernacular.

It would be a curious question whether, supposing the sun could be inhabited, its citizens would be as large, in proportion to the size of that luminary as we mundanes are in proportion to the earth. This, it strikes us, is one of those questions which it would be difficult to answer to general satisfaction. We remember some old philosopher who once complained that a flea had a good deal more proportional force than, from his size, he was entitled to. Although weighing only a single grain, it is endowed with the ability to jump an inch and a half at a spring. Now a man weighing an hundred and fifty pounds, ought, "by the same rule," to be able to make a spring over a space of twelve thousand eight hundred miles, which would be equivalent to jumping from Gotham to Cochin China, or round the world in two jumps. A man capable of doing that, might be set down "pretty spry."

WOMAN'S EMANCIPATION

(BEING A LETTER ADDRESSED TO MR. PUNCH, WITH A DRAWING, BY A STRONG-MINDED AMERICAN WOMAN.)

It is quite easy to realize the considerable difficulty that the natives of this old country are like to have in estimating the rapid progress of ideas on all subjects among us, the Anglo-Saxons of the Western World. Mind travels with us on a rail-car, or a high-pressure river-boat. The snags and sawyers of prejudice, which render so dangerous the navigation of Time's almighty river, whose water-power has toppled over these giant-growths of the world, without being able to detach them from the congenial mud from which they draw their nutriment, are dashed aside or run down in the headlong career of the United States mind.

We laugh to scorn the dangers of popular effervescence. Our almighty-browed and cavernous-eyed statesmen sit, heroically, on the safety-valve, and the mighty ark of our vast Empire of the West moves on at a pressure on the square inch which would rend into shivers the rotten boiler-plates of your outworn states of the Old World.

To use a phrase which the refined manners of our ladies have banished from the drawing-room, and the saloon of the boarding-house, we go ahead. And our progress is the progress of all – not of high and low, for we have abolished the odious distinction – but of man, woman, and child, each in his or her several sphere.

Our babies are preternaturally sharp, and highly independent from the cradle. The high-souled American boy will not submit to be whipped at school. That punishment is confined to the lower animals.

But it is among our sex – among women (for I am a woman, and my name is Theodosia Eudoxia Bang, of Boston, U.S., Principal of the Homeopathic and Collegiate Thomsonian Institute for developing the female mind in that intellectual city) that the stranger may realize, in the most convincing manner, the progressional influences of the democratic institutions it is our privilege to live under.

An American female – for I do not like the term Lady, which suggests the outworn distinctions of feudalism – can travel alone from one end of the States to the other; from the majestic waters of Niagara to the mystic banks of the Yellowstone, or the rolling prairies of Texas. The American female delivers lectures, edits newspapers, and similar organs of opinion, which exert so mighty a leverage on the national mind of our great people, is privileged to become a martyr to her principles, and to utter her soul from the platform, by the side of the gifted Poe or the immortal Peabody. All this in these old countries is the peculiar privilege of man, as opposed to woman. The female is consigned to the slavish duties of the house. In America the degrading cares of the household are comparatively unknown to our sex. The American wife resides in a boarding-house, and, consigning the petty cares of daily life to the helps of the establishment, enjoys leisure for higher pursuits, and can follow her vast aspirations upward, or in any other direction.

We are emancipating ourselves, among other badges of the slavery of feudalism, from the inconvenient dress of the European female. With man's functions, we have asserted our right to his garb, and especially to that part of it which invests the lower extremities. With this great symbol, we have adopted others – the hat, the cigar, the paletot or round jacket. And it is generally calculated that the dress of the Emancipated American female is quite pretty – as becoming in all points as it is manly and independent. I inclose a drawing made by my gifted fellow-citizen, Increasen Tarbox, of Boston, U.S., for the Free Woman's Banner, a periodical under my conduct, aided by several gifted women of acknowledged progressive opinions.

I appeal to my sisters of the Old World, with confidence, for their sympathy and their countenance in the struggle in which we are engaged, and which will soon be found among them also. For I feel that I have a mission across the broad Atlantic, and the steamers are now running at reduced fares. I hope to rear the standard of Female Emancipation on the roof of the Crystal Palace, in London Hyde Park. Empty wit may sneer at its form, which is bifurcate. And why not? Mohammed warred under the Petticoat of his wife Kadiga. The American female Emancipist marches on her holy war under the distinguishing garment of her husband. In the compartment devoted to the United States in your Exposition, my sisters of the old country may see this banner by the side of a uniform of female freedom – such as my drawing represents – the garb of martyrdom for a month; the trappings of triumph for all ages of the future!

Theodosia E. Bang, M.A.,

M.C.P., ΦΔΚ, K.L.M., &c., &c. (of Boston, U.S.)

FASHIONS FOR AUGUST

We have very little change to note in the forms of dress, since our last; and while "the dog-star rages," materials suitable for the heat of July will be appropriate. For out-of-door costume, silks of light texture, and hues accordant with those of surrounding nature, such as peach, lilac, violet, buff, green, pink, &c., are in vogue. Mantelets are much worn, and are of two different forms – the scarf mantelet, and the little round shawl mantelet. These, particularly the shawl mantelet, are beautifully embroidered and deeply fringed, giving them an exceedingly rich appearance. They have mostly a double collar attached.

Promenade Costume. – The figure on the right, in our first illustration, represents a beautiful style of walking costume. The dress is of light-textured silk. Body high, open in front, and having at the edge, as a lapel, two vandyked and goffered trimmings, with very little fullness. The under one meets the upper about two-thirds down the front. The body has a rounded point in front, and the trimming goes to the bottom. The sleeves are almost tight for about two-thirds of the arm, and end in a frill, on which are set two smaller frills, vandyked and goffered at the edges. The skirt has three flounces; the first, six inches below the waist, is ten inches deep; the second is twelve, and the third fourteen inches. Each of these flounces, already a little drawn, is trimmed at bottom with two vandyked frills of two inches in width. They are held in, when sewed on, so as to be full on the large ones. The habit shirt is composed of two valenciennes at the collar, and of muslin puffs; the under-sleeve, trimmed with a narrow valenciennes, is formed of muslin bouillonnés, diminishing toward the bottom.

The bonnet is an elegant style. It is drawn, of net, blond, and silk; the edge of the poke has a roll of silk; above and below there is a transparent width of net, about two inches deep, and two blond frills drawn shell-shape. All the inside of the poke and crown is composed of a kind of carapace made of silk, with small folds lapping over each other. On one side there are two large moss-roses with buds and leaves. A blond, about an inch and a half wide, goes over the roses, and is continued in waves all along the piping. On the other side there are no flowers, but instead of them are a net bouillonné and three blond frills. The curtain is of puffed net, with blonds and no frills.

Young Lady's Morning Costume. – The figure on the left represents an elegant morning costume for a young lady. Hair in bandeaux, forming a puff which spreads well at the bottom. The points are carried back to meet under the knot. The back hair is done up in a torsade with black velvet ribbons, the two ends of which float behind. Frock of plaid silk, skirt very full. Canezou, or jacket, of embroidered muslin, trimmed with embroidered and festooned bands. It is open and square in front, with five bands for trimming. The sleeves are demi-length, and trimmed in a similar manner. The under-chemisette is of plaited net, with a narrow lace at the edge.

Jackets are now much worn, not only as a part of a morning costume, but as an elegant addition to a visiting dress. Figure 2 represents two of these. The first, held in the hand, is of light blue silk, and intended as an accompaniment to a visiting dress of the same material. It is trimmed round the lower part, as well as the sleeves and lapels or facings, with a narrow frilling of the same, fastened down the front with three large rosettes of silk, the corsage being sufficiently open to show the habit-shirt, decorated with a frilling of white lace. The large white under-sleeves are decorated with a double fall of white lace. On the half-length figure is represented the jacket of a morning costume. It is of white jaconet muslin, trimmed with lace and rows of pink ribbon of different widths. Long sleeves made rather loose, and encircled with lace and ribbon, finished with a nœud of the latter, on the top of the wrist. Under close sleeve trimmed with rows of lace placed close together. This figure also shows a pretty style of cap, made of white lace, trimmed round the back part with four rows of narrow white lace, finished on each side with a bow and ends of pink ribbon, with loops on each side of the face.

A beautiful style of Evening Dress is a robe of white cachmere, trimmed with very deep flounces, each finished with stripes of silk woven in the material. The body open, square in the front; made very high and open, across the chest, terminating below the waist with basquines, which give it some what the appearance of a little vest, or jacket.

Figure 3 represents a pleasing style of dress for a little boy. A Charles-the-Ninth cap of black velvet, with a well-rolled feather on one side, and proceeding from a cabbage-rose of black satin ribbon. Coat of black velvet, without any seam at the waist. It is hollowed out at the side and back seams, like a lady's paletot, tight over the breast, and fastened with little jet buttons. Sleeves half short, also with buttons. Under the coat is a tunic of plaid poplin, black and red. This tunic is full of gathers like a Scotch kilt. Plaid stockings, stripes sloping; small black gaiters with jet buttons. Collar sewed on to a band; the trimmings of the under-sleeves and trowsers are of the older style of English embroidery.

The taste for flowers, those gems which give exquisite beauty to nature's pictures, is becoming more and more prevalent. Nearly every bonnet is decorated with flowers, particularly those of rice straw. Heaths, lilies, violets, roses, &c., with straw, oats, asparagus, butter-cups, and fancy trifles are used in giving grace and beauty to bonnets.

END

notes

1

Turenne was a marshal of France, and a distinguished military leader in the reign of Louis XIV. He marched an invading army into the Palatinate, a province of Germany, on the Rhine, and spread devastation every where around him. From the top of his castle at Manheim, the Elector of the Palatinate, at one time saw two of his cities and twenty five of his villages in flames.

2

Some one repeated, to Maria Louisa, this remark of Napoleon. She did not understand its meaning, and went to Talleyrand, inquiring, "What does that mean, Monsieur, an old granny, what does it mean?" "It means," the accomplished courtier replied, with one of his most profound bows, "it means a venerable sage."

3

Rodolph of Hapsburg, was a gentleman, who by his own energies had elevated himself to the imperial throne of Germany; and became the founder of the house of Hapsburg. He was the ancestor to whom the Austrian kings looked back with the loftiest pride.

4

Napoleon, at St. Helena, gave the following graphic and most discriminating sketch of the character of Madame de Staël. "She was a woman of considerable talent and great ambition; but so extremely intriguing and restless, as to give rise to the observation, that she would throw her friends into the sea, that, at the moment of drowning, she might have an opportunity of saving them. Shortly after my return from the conquest of Italy, I was accosted by her in a large company, though at that time I avoided going out much in public. She followed me every where, and stuck so close that I could not shake her off. At last she asked me, 'Who is at this moment the first woman in the world?' intending to pay a compliment to me, and thinking that I would return it. I looked at her, and replied, 'She, madame, who has borne the greatest number of children,' an answer which greatly confused her." From this hour she became the unrelenting enemy of Napoleon.

5

"Few persons," said Mirabeau, "comprehend the power of my ugliness." "If you would form an idea of my looks," he wrote to a lady who had never seen him, "you must imagine a tiger who has had the small-pox." "The life of Mirabeau," says Sydney Smith, "should embrace all the talents and all the vices, every merit and every defect, every glory and every disgrace. He was student, voluptuary, soldier, prisoner, author, diplomatist, exile, pauper, courtier, democrat, orator, statesman, traitor. He has seen more, suffered more, learned more, felt more, done more, than any man of his own or any other age."

6

Talleyrand, one of the most distinguished diplomatists, was afterward elevated by the Emperor Napoleon to be Grand Chamberlain of the Empire. He was celebrated for his witticisms. One day Mirabeau was recounting the qualities which, in those difficult times, one should possess to be minister of state. He was evidently describing his own character, when, to the great mirth of all present, Talleyrand archly interrupted him with the inquiry, "He should also be pitted with the small-pox, should he not?"

7

Continued from the July Number.

8

Concluded from the July Number.

9

J. Montgomery, in the "Pelican Island."

10

Continued from the July Number.

11

From Travels in the United States, etc. By Lady Emmeline Stuart Wortley. Just published by Harper and Brothers.
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