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Miitt'fil Cabinet.
VOL. 11.
THE CABINET
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From the Spirit and .Manners ot‘ the Age. j
I
fragments of an antediluvian diary.
By Miss Jewsbury.
REFLECTIONS OF METHUSALEH IN HIS
YOUTH —IN MIDDLE AGE— AND IN HI3
OLD AGE,
s
To day I am a hundred years old. llow
blissful are the feelings of boyhood! My
senses are acme as the tree with the
shrinking leaf. My blood bounds through j
my veins as the river pours through the)
valley, rejoicing in its strength. Life
lies before me like another plain of Shinar
—vast, unoccupied, inviting—l will fill it
with achievements and pleasure! in about
Sixty years it will be time for me to think
of marrying; rny kinswoman Zillah will by
that time have nnerged from girlhood; she
already gives promise, f hear, of comeli
ness a id discretion.—Twenty years hence
1 will pay a visit to her father, that I may
see how she grows; meanwhile, I will
build a city to receive her when she be
corn s my wife.
Nearly three centuries have passed
since my inarrage. Can it be? It seems but
yesterday since I sported like a young an
tehope round my father's tent, or, climbing
the dark cedars, nestled like a bird among
the boughs—and now lam a man in au
thority, as well as in the prime of life* I
lead out my trained servants to the light,
and sit head of the council, beneath the
very t ! ee where. a3 an infant, my mother
laid me to sleep, dazed, my youngest
born, a lovely babe of thirty summers, is
dead: but 1 have four godly sons remain
ing. And my three daughters are fair as
their mother, when 1 first met her in the
Acacia grove, where now stands one of my
city watch towers. They are the pride
of the plain, no less for their acquirements
than their beauty. No damsel carries the
pitcher from the fountain with the grace of
Adah, none can dry the summer fruit like
Azubah —and none can fashion a robe of
bkins with the skill of Milcah. When
their cousin Mahaleel has seen another
half century, lie shall take the choice of
the three. j
* • * * *
Mv eight hundredth birth day! And
now I feel the approach of old age and
infirmity. My beard is become white as
the blossoms of the almond tree. I am
constrained to use the staff when 1 journey
the stars look less bright tiian formerly :
the flowers smell les9 odorous; 1 have liad
Zdlah in the tomb of the rock; Milcah is
gone to the dwelling of Mahaleel; my
son- take my place at the council and on 1
the field; all is changed. The long fu- ;
ture is become the short past. The earth i
is full of violence; the ancient and the
honorable are sinking beneath the young
and the vicious. Tliegiants stalk through
the length and breadth of the land, where
once dwelt a quiet people; all is changed.
The beasts of the field and the monsters
of the deep grow! and press on us with un
wonted fury; traditions, visions, and
threatnings are abroad. What tealful
doom hangs over this fair world, 1 know j
not; it is enough that 1 am leaving it; yet i
“another five or eight years, and the tale
will b j complete But have I, in very
deed, trod this earth nearly a thousand
years? It is false. lam yet a boy. I
have had a dream—a long, long ; busy
dream; of buying and selling; mar ymg
and giving in marriage, of building and
planting; feasting and warring; sorrowing
nnd rejoicing; loving and hating; but il is
false to call it a life. Go to—it lias been
a vision of the night; and now that 1 am
awake. 1 will forget. ‘Lunech, my son,
iiow long 16 it siuqc we planted the g*rdc u
of oak* beside the river? Was it uot y r es
terday 7 ’ ‘My father, dost thou sport?
1 hose oaks cast a broad shadow when my
sister carried me beneath them in her
arms, and wove me chaplets of their
leaves.’ I’hou art my son; and 1 atn old.
Lead me to thy mothers tomb, and there
leave me to meditate. What am l the
better for my past length of being? Where
will be its records when 1 am gone? They
are yonder—on all sides. Will those
massy towers fall? Will those goldon
plains become desolate? Will the chil
dren that call me father, forget? The
seers utter uaik sayings upon their harps
when they sing of the future; they say our
descendants shall be men of dwindled
stature; that the years of their lives shall
be constructed to the span of our bo) hood
—but what is that future to me? 1 have
listened to the tales of Paradise—nay in
the blue distance, 1 have seen the dark
tops of its cedars. I have heard the so
lemn melodies ol Jubal w hen he sat on the
sea shore, and the sound of the waves min
gled with his harping I have seen angels
the visitants of men —l have seen an end
of all perfecticn-whal is the future to uier’
MODERN FEMALE. DRESS.
Few persons unacquainted with the
occult machinery of a lady‘s wardrobe
are aware of the anatomical instru
ments now in use to improve *thc le
mal’ form divine’or of the amazing
quantity of material in which modern
belles enhance their lovely persons.
A lady now a days, rquires, not a
paltry half dozen yards for a gown,
but not fewer thin eighteen yards are
requisite to make that single article of
her dress. We even know one ladv,
of diminutive stature, who actually
contrived to consume twenty four
yards of silk io one dress; a sufficient
quantity to have served her grandmo
ther, in former times, for three or
four. The clothes of children are, in
like manner, made so as to consume
ihc greatest possible quantity of ma
terials, and a girl of six years of age
is bundled up into as much stuff in her
frock alone as would have made a
cloak for her mother a dozen years
agd
Wc should not feel inclined to rep
rehend this profuse expenditure of
clothing material, were it observed
without rendering its objects soar what
ridiculous; for it must tend greatly to
increase the consumption of goods,
and thus benefit the manufacturing in
terestofthe country. But it is to be
lamented, that this fashion, like others
that are carried to excess, involves
certain points or usages, the utility or
elegance of which are so questionable,
that nothing but daily custom prevents
all sensible people from setting them
down altogether as absurd. The bus
tics, for instance, or stiffening to en
large the hips, area downright impo
sition upon the credulity of the male
community’ So, in some degree, arc
the enormous sleeves, like balloons,
much thicker than the waist of the
; wearer together with the hustles afore
said, and certain other stuffings, arc
intended, by contrast, to give the
waist an unusual appearance of slen
derness. Some of these sleeves have
hoops of whalebone with them, to keep
them extended, or inflated to their full
dimensions. The shape of the arm is
thus entirely concealed in the huge
[cavity within, and the hand peeps out
at the lower extremity through a
little wristband, as if it were thrust
’ through a pillow. For some time the
fulling of the sleeve was confined to
the upper arm, leaving the wearer
some use, at least of her hands; after
wards, il extended to the wrist, like
the lawn sleeves of a Bishop, and
[hung down like a huge rag bag; so
| that ladies at dinner ob
liged to call the waiting maid to pin
! up the sack, or take in a reef (as a
sailor would say) to keep the super-
Warrenton, February 20, 1830.
fluous drapery out of tlit; soup. Since
this latter fashion the sleeves again
appear, like a balloon or ball, down to
the elbow, through which appears the
lower arm lightly covered, and redu
ced by contrast to the appearance of a
drumstick. NVe cannot, for the very
life of us, find out any use for them
immense wide sleeves, unless indeed,
they w re to be used as traveling
bandboxes for light articles, or for the
smuggling of lace ami other finery. If
they were filled with gas, the lady
would certainly be borne aloft, and
might, when the wind served, take
aericl journey to see her friends in
distant parts.
We now come to the modern bon
nets, contrived, no doubt, by theii
bulk, to diminish the appearance of
the countenance, and make the fea
tures look neat and small. In former
times, females wore strings to theii
bonnets to keep them on. Now, they
have Hying ribbons as well as ty
ing ribbons, the former being left to
hang down from the cars, or flv ou*
like pinions on the wind, by way of
giving the belle a girlish, careless, and
interesting appearance. But what
were tiie ribbons our mother was s<
proud of, of about two inches in
breadth, and purchased for iOd. a
yard, to the ribbons now attached to
these enormous penthouses of straw
yclept bonnets? Why, a ribbon of less
than six inches in width is intolerable
even to a country wench, and some of
the fashionables have ribbons of a 1 4
of a yard in breadth, which cost the
very moderate sn offil'tooo oliillings
a yard! If this fashion continues to
grow’, webs of 6atin will, in a short
time, be rather too narrow for ribbons,
and the silk weavers must enlarge
their looms for anew article. With
respect to the bonnets, it is impossible
for a modern lady to pass through an
ordinary door way without being in
danger of damaging her upper works:
and hence many house doors that o
pened from the middle (half being suf
licier.t for the admission of an ordina
ry corporation) have been made to
open in one to admit the mistress of
the mansion. Ladies, too on entering
their carriages, are compelled to un
cover, and, crushing in their Leghorn
thatch sidewise before them, contrive
to find room for themselves beside it
These bonnets may, however be re
commended to young wives, as. with
a little stiffniug, they may serve, upon
occasion, for cradles for the first born.
To the deception of hustles and puf
fings we may add that of false fronts
of iuxurant ringlets now much in use,
and which save the wearers the trou
ble of putting their hair, if they ha* e
any into papers-* task which occupies
some of them a couple of hours every
night. The curling is assuredly or
namental, but it is, nevertheless, a
species of deception, for, in nine cases
out often, the hair of the woman of
these Countries is as straight and
sleek as candle wicks. The curling is
not, therefore, a natural beauty, tho*
woman often assume a mighty conse
quence from a well curled pate—for
getful of furnishing the apartments
within—but curls are so becoming, so
bewitching, that we grant them with
out reluctance, setting them down,
nevertheless as a sort of springes or
gin work to catch the hearts of the ru*
dei sex.
To conclude, how is a man to ascertain
the real personal attractions of a modern
lady who is thus enceased —her arms in
balloons, her hips in bustles, her face set
oft’ in artificial curls, and her waste
squeezed into an artificial span by the aid
ot steel and whalebone? Or rather, sup
posing a man should marry a woman thus
built and inflated to the rouodness an
symmetry of beauty, on the supposition
! that such shape wa9 her own; bow would
he look when he fu J (hit all that he
admired was the eff ct >f mere padding,
and wadding and puffing, and stuffing—
that she was inflated into symmetry—all
but her waist—which was none of the
most slender, when released from the gal
ling bondage of her stays, it burnout in
dignant, to its proper clumsiness? Might
lie nut demand an annulling of the mar
riage contract? Might he not plead that
he had been cheated and deceived? Might
lie not say—“l married, as l thought, a
line, robust, well formed woman: I find
her, when divested of her borrow* and
plumes anil stuffing, an ordinary feeble
bodied object, as shapeless as a post! !!
In verity, if some redress be not pro
vided lor such a fearful contingency, no
bachelor will be safe.* for as gallantry and
delicacy would forbid him to request a
more satUfactory view of a lady than the
present fashion of dress will permit, in
place of flesh and blood lie may find (as we
observed a few months ago) that he has
united himself for better lor worse, to a
bundle of drapery and cushions, with a
skeleton stuck in the middle of them ! ! ‘
THE LEG SAFETY-CHAIN
By the late death of a fuller, a country
lad caine into the possession of an estate
of Bboo. Two courses presented them
selves to his mind—the one to devote
himself to the persuit* of agriculiui e, and
the other to lead a fashionable course of
life. To be chained down to the earth,
all his days, he could not endure the tho’t;
he therefore, resolved upon the life of a
gentlemen of fashion. Upon taking a
peep into the world, he found himself
comparatively coarse in both dress and
manners. Instead of the flue Saxony, he
saw upon the backs of the n*>•> r fj■ ■■ *’ •*--
mti * ’ |**il i3 j he uiscove red his to be the
homespun nf the counln—instead of the
elegant fit of th tailor, Ins was the clumsy
work of a country seamstress—instead of
the glistening, thimble shaped beaver of
the dandy, he discovered upon his head
the low crown, broad brim, wool hat—in
stead of the superfine kersey petticoat
pantaloons, falling in graceful folds upon
his boots, his were the coarse butternut
colored, snug setting trowsers, reaching
only to the calf of hi* leg—and instead of
the nicely moulded, square toed boots,
so much in vogue, his feet were entrench
ed in the rough, round toed cow hides of
the country cobler.—-A* lie had deter
mined upon the course of a fashionable,
lie must assume his habiliment*, an la
bide the consequences. Ho winds liis
way to the shopt of the citv. and in a
few hours, the robust son of the moun
tains, is transferred into the shape and
figure of a dandy. He returns to his
quarters. Ho now receives civilities
fi om the major dorno, so which he was
nut accustomed in his c< u ‘try garb, it
slitters his vanity and puffs him with
pride. He presents himse/f to the
grand mirror of the pat lour, turns this
way and that, and in the language of tri
uph, thug expresses himself; ‘Egad, now
I look like folks, now 1 am a gentleman/’
Had he not been moved by further cu
riosity perhapi. be had returned to his
home and upon reflection relinquished the
persuits of a gentleman—but upon taking
another turn down Broadway, he quickly
discovered his array to be incomplete; he
had no ring upon his finger, no cane in
his hand, no watch in his fob, no s .fi ty
chain about his neck, no breastpin in hia
bosom, no snuff box, no gloves, no stock,
and no paper collar. These were radio*
al deficiencies; and as they were the main
constituents of a buck of the world, they
must be supplied—no time is loit: he en
ters the Jeweller 4 *, the rings thicken and
glisten on his fingers, the diamond sparkles
in his bosom, the safety chain protrudes
its modest front upon the vest, and the
grand establishment dangles at his fob.
He enters the millmary and cane estab
lishment. and soon emerges with his head
•supported by *tock and collar, and pu - li
es his way back to the Ex hange with
many a flourish ol his ivory cane. The
civilities of the host are redoubled—suits
f rooms are tendered—bottles of chain*
. aigne and burgundy sparkle upon the
-idehoard; gentlemen of fashion are in*
• oduced; all things go merrily, evening
app.oachefl; its amusements are charming;
me
>o 3.,).