'll do
it _splendidly_!"

"Splendidly" I know I could not do it, but to do it--rather amused me.

After all, there is one benefit in writing of something you know nothing
about (and you are certain that ninety-nine per cent. of your readers
will not be able to enlighten you) the necessity for accuracy does not
arise. And so, I settled myself down to invent "history," and, if my
historical narrative is all invention, I can defend myself by saying that
if it isn't _true_--it _might be_. And many historical romances cannot
boast even that defence.

Most people who write about the early history of the world have to guess
a good deal; so I don't see why I shouldn't state emphatically that,
after years and years and years of profound research, the first corset
"happened" when Eve suddenly discovered that she was showing signs of
middle-age in the middle. So she plaited some reeds together, tied them
tightly round her waist-line, and, sure enough, Adam had to put off
making that joke about "Once round Eve's waist, twice round the Garden of
Eden" for many moons. But Eve, I suppose, discovered later on, as many a
woman has also discovered since her day, that, though a tight belt maketh
the waistline small, the body bulgeth above and below eventually. So Eve
began making a still wider plait--chasing, as it were, the "bulge" all
over her body. In this manner she at last became encased in a belt wide
enough to imprison her torso quite _un_comfortably, but "she kept her
figure"--or thought she did--and thus easily passed for one hundred and
fifty years old when, in reality, she was over six hundred.

And every woman who is an "Eve" at heart has followed in her time the
example of the mother of all of 'em. As they begin to fatten, so they
begin to tighten, and the inevitable and consequential "bulge" is
imprisoned as it "bulgeth" until no _corsetiere_ can do more for them
than hint that men like their divinities a trifle plump in places. But
to arrive at this--the last and only consolation--a woman has to become
rigidly encased from her thighs almost to her neck. She can scarcely
walk and she can hardly breathe, and the fat which must go somewhere has
usually gone to her neck, but--thank Heaven!--"she has kept her figure"
(or she likes to think she has), and many a woman would sooner lose her
character than lose her "line."

You may think that this only applies to frivolous and silly women, but
you are wrong. It applie