its, those lying mounds of fashion, that false incrustation on the
surface of nature, known as "bustles." Also, there was a hoopskirt curled
upon the floor, and an open barrel with a stowage of books--a novel or two
of E. P. Roe, the poems of John Saxe, a table copy of Whittier in padded
leather, an album with a flourish on the cover--these at the top of the
heap.

I choose to trace the connection between the styles of dress and books,
and--where my knowledge serves--to show the effect of political change on
both. For it is written that when Constantinople fell in the fifteenth
century Turkish costumes became the fashion through western Europe--maybe
a flash of eastern color across the shoulders or an oriental buckle for
the shoes. Similarly the Balkan War gave us hints for dress. Many styles
to-day are marks of our kinship with the East. These are mere broken
promptings for your own elaboration. And it seems to sort with this theory
of close relation, that the generation which flared and flounced its
person until nature was no more than a kernel in the midst, which puffed
itself like a muffin with but a finger-point of dough within, should be
the generation that particularly delighted in romantic literature, in
which likewise nature is so prudently wrapped that scarce an ankle can
show itself. It would be a nice inquiry whether the hoopskirt was not
introduced--it was midway in the eighteenth century, I think--at the time
of the first budding of romantic sentiment. The "Man of Feeling" came
after and Anne Radcliffe's novels. Is it not significant also, in these
present days of Russian novels and naked realism, that costume should
advance sympathetically to the edge of modesty?

[Illustration]

There is something, however, to be said in favor of romantic books,
despite the horrible examples at the top of this barrel. Perhaps our own
literature shivers in too thin a shift. For once upon a time somewhere
between the age of bustles and ourselves there were writers who ended
their stories "and they were married and lived happily ever after."
Whereas at this present day stories are begun "They were married and
straightway things began to go to the devil." And for my own part I have
read enough of family quarrels. I am tired of the tune upon the triangle
and I am ready for softer flutings. When I visit my neighbors, I want them
to make a decent pretense. It was Charles Lamb who found his married
friends too loving in his pr