or them by nature, and thus occasion diseases
of the spine, if not even consumption, sin all in ignorance? A slender
waist was not regarded in ancient Greece as an attribute of female
beauty; in Paris it is now usually deemed a deformity. When will this
perverse taste in America be corrected? Let gentlemen cease to praise
such distortions of the frame, and let ladies exhibit the intelligence
and regard to the laws of God, which will second and secure a reform.
Who does not know that the Chinese barbarity of a pinched foot is
contrary both to health and true taste? Why should we refuse instruction
from the ancient models of beauty, on these points, more than on others?
Is it not known that to pursue the dance in winter through the chills of
midnight, and return to one's home, as the day dawns, in summer apparel,
is treading that path which has led thousands to consumption? Yes, too
often are these guilty practices indulged in merely from the bondage of
fashion. Not only are parental voices unheeded, but personal convictions
are silenced, rather than violate its Draco-like laws.

There may be men who encourage woman in the culture of a false delicacy
in reference to her health. There must be somewhere a power, before
which these unhappy beings do homage. Else had we never witnessed that
affected fastidiousness of appetite, and that affected sickliness, so
fashionable in some circles. Let this sex, however, for the sake of
self, and of posterity, of man and of God, rise above that wretched
servitude, which calls for the sacrifice of sound constitutions, and
sometimes even life itself, rather than permit the "tender and delicate
woman to set the sole of her foot on the ground." Let physical vigor,
attended by mental excellence and moral soundness, become a part of her
noble adorning. No more may childhood and youth be the only seasons, in
which public opinion shall tolerate those generous exercises in the free
air, by which buoyancy and vigor may be prolonged even to old age.

Fashion, if allowed its entire sway, leads woman into many modes of
Affectation. Rosseau affirms that "artifice is a talent natural to
woman. Let," he says, "little girls be in this respect compared with
boys of the same age; and if these appear not dull, blundering, stupid,
in comparison, I shall be incontestibly wrong." Does this, if it be
true, explain in any measure the strange fact that the servants of
fashion must never be known as industrious,