But,
granting your statement to be true, in its widest sense, of what
consequence is it? How much will the whole happiness of your
daughter's life be affected by her dancing some fifty times less
than her companions, or wasting some few hours less in the empty
conversation of coxcombs? A man often admires a style of dress, which
he would not venture to support in a wife. Extravagance has prevented
many marriages, and rendered still more unhappy. And should your
daughters fail in forming good connexions, what have you to leave
them, save extravagant habits, too deeply rooted to be eradicated.
Think you those who now laugh at them for a soiled glove, or an
unfashionable ribbon, will assist their poverty, or cheer their
neglected old age? No; they would find them as cold and selfish
as they are vain. A few thousands in the bank are worth all the
fashionable friends in Christendom.'
Whether my friend was convinced, or not, I cannot say; but I saw her
daughters in Cornhill, the next week, with new French hats and blonde
veils.
It is really melancholy to see how this fever of extravagance rages,
and how it is sapping the strength of our happy country.
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