anguage which is about as
intelligible to him as the most abstruse Japanese or the most classic
Law-Latin.

If we are so fortunate as to obtain, by any stratagem, admission to
hall or anteroom, in the mansions of our fair friends, our olfactories
are regaled with a fragrance which we instinctively associate with
tailors' shops, and which, I am informed, does in fact arise from the
contact of woollen substances with hot flat-irons. As we advance, our
ears are greeted by the resounding clash of scissors. Entering upon
the field of action, our eyes are dazzled by a thousand fragments of
rich and brilliant hues, and our personal safety endangered by swiftly
flying needles and unsuspected pins. Gossip is at an end, for the
thread must be continually bitten off. Dancing is child's play, a
folly of the past. The piano is converted into a table, or an
ironing-board. No games can be suggested but Thread-my-needle, and
Thimble-rig. No books are at hand but Harper, with the fashion-plate
at the end; the newspapers of the day are cut into uncouth shapes; and
conversation (when conducted in English) hangs the unsuccessful
Bloomer reform upon the gibbet of ridicule.

Now, if we would prevent utter disunion in society, something like a
compromise must be effected, and to the ladies belongs the laboring
oar. I use a metaphor which implies that they must do something they
are little accustomed to do; they must make some concession. We have
done all we could do, and I will make one statement which will
convince the world that we bachelors are not obstinate without good
reason. I confess (though it is not without some slight degree of
shame that I own it), that I have, during the last week, consumed the
greater part of every day in ineffectual study, trying to perfect
myself in the terminology of the science of Fashion. I have listened
attentively, and have gathered into a retentive memory sundry
technicalities; but in vain have I submitted these terms of a strange
dialect to the strictest etymological research. In vain have I
conversed upon this subject with the most intelligent dry-goods
dealers. In learning the few idiomatic phrases they employ, I have
experienced only the satisfaction which young students in Greek
literature feel, when they have, with infinite labor, mastered the
_alphabet_ of that rich and copious language.

But there is hope. Experience tells us, this state of things cannot
last for ever. A few weeks, and our su