cold chamber and bed, to get a troubled sleep, and awaken in a fever
which carries her to her grave. Then round her mutilated body gather her
mourning friends to bid it a long farewell and hear her minister talk of
the inscrutable ways of God's providence. Call it by what name _you_
will, to _me_ it is suicide. Another, by daily exposures in wet and cold
and change of climate in the common woman-dress, takes cold after cold,
till a consumption fastens upon her lungs and she slowly passes away.
Another circle of mourners weep, and another minister talks of the
inscrutable ways of God; but to me it is still another case of suicide.
Another passes through the common lot of girlhood, with the common
succession of colds and coughs, fevers and pains; in due time marries,
with her chest cramped into half its proper dimensions, her lungs small
and weak, her female economy all diseased and weakened by the abuses of
dress and exposure. At length the period of maternity approaches. Too
weak to sustain its labors and burdens, she dies amid them. Friends come
weeping again, and the minister condoles them with the sad old story of
God's inscrutable ways. But to me it is not inscrutable. It is another
case of suicide. Could the grave-yards all over the country speak, they
would utter fearful tales of this suicidal abuse of Dress.

The second question is, Do our ideas of Dress corrupt our hearts? One
may almost worship at the shrine of Dress. Many are the young ladies
whose thoughts rise no higher than the dress they wear and the bonnet
that decks their heads. If they can be hung over with gewgaws and
tinselry, if plumes shall tremble on their heads, silks shall rustle
about them, and jewels shine wherever they go, to catch every eye and
bewilder every passer-by, they fancy they are in the upper-ten of
womanhood. Vain! The peacock, whose little heart is one beating pulse of
vanity, is not half so vain as they. Giddy, trifling, empty, vapid,
cold, moonshine women, whose souls can perch on a plume, and whose only
ambition is to be a traveling advertisement for the men and women who
traffic in what they wear, are many who flaunt in satins and glitter in
diamonds. How many such there are we would not say. But I doubt not,
that not a little like them are many who are otherwise women. They love
Dress; love it inordinately; love it when they ought to love something
worthier; and spend their time, and thoughts, and mind, and heart, and
money o