Indeed Ward becomes genuinely excited over the matter, and says some really bitter things: "I shall make bold for this once to borrow a little of their long-waisted but short skirted patience.... It is beyond the ken of my understanding to conceive, how those women should have any true grace, or valuable virtue, that have so little wit as to disfigure themselves with such exotic garbes, as not only dismantle their native lovely lustre, but transclouts them into gant-bar-geese, ill shapen-shotten-shell-fish, Egyptian Hyeroglyphics, or at the best French flirts of the pastery, which a proper English woman should scorn with her heels...."
The raillery became more frequent and certainly much more good-natured in the eighteenth century. Philip Fithian, a Virginia tutor, writing in 1773, said in his _Diary_: "Almost every Lady wears a red Cloak; and when they ride out they tye a red handkerchief over their Head and face, so that when I first came into Virginia, I was distressed whenever I saw a Lady, for I thought she had the toothache."
In fact, the subject sometimes inspired the men to poetry, as may be seen from the following specimen:
"Young ladies, in town, and those that live 'round, Let a friend at this season advise you; Since money's so scarce, and times growing worse, Strange things may soon hap and surprise you.
"First, then, throw aside your topknots of pride, Wear none but your own country linen, Of Economy boast, let your pride be the most, To show clothes of your own make and spinning.
"What if home-spun, they say, is not quite so gay As brocades, yet be not in a passion, For when once it is known, this is much worn in town, One and all will cry out--''Tis the fashion.'
"Throw aside your Bohea and your Green Hyson tea, And all things with a new-fashion duty; Procure a good store of the choice Labrador For there'll soon be enough here to suit you.
"These do without fear, and to all you'll appear Fair, charming, true, lovely, and clever, Tho' the times remain darkish, your men may be sparkish, And love you much stronger than ever."[137]
A perusal of extracts from newspapers of those days makes it clear that a good many men were of the opinion that more simplicity in dress would indeed make women "fair, charming, true, lovely, and clever." The _Essex Journal_ of Massachusetts of the late eighteenth century, commenting upon the follies common to "females"--vanity, affectation, talkativeness, etc.,--adds the following remarks on dress: "Too great delight in dress and finery by the expense of time and money which they occasion in some instances to a degree beyond all bounds of decency and common sense, tends naturally to sink a woman to the lowest pitch of contempt amongst all those of either sex who have capacity enough to put two thoughts together. A creature who spends its whole time in dressing, prating, gaming, and gadding, is a being--originally indeed of the rational make, but who has sunk itself beneath its rank, and is to be considered at present as nearly on a level with the monkey species...."