University of Virginia Library

I WAS, last week, at Boston; and, having
occasion for a new hat, stepped into a milliner's
shop to inquire the mode. The milliner replied,
that it was not yet in her power to answer my
question. “The spring ships,” said she “are later
than common; but their arrival is hourly expected,
when we shall be furnished with memorandum-books
which will ascertain and determine
the fashion for the season.” What she
meant by memorandum-books, I could not conceive.
I had always supposed them blanks, designed
for noting whatever occurred, without inconvenience.
Unwilling, however, to be thought
a simple country-girl, totally unacquainted with
the world, I sought no explanation from her;
but repaired to a particular friend for instruction.
From whom I learned that the chief value of
these same memorandum-books consists in their
containing imported cuts of ladies' head-dresses,
hats, and other habiliments, which are always
sure to be admired and imitated, as the perfection
of taste and propriety!

This discovery mortified me exceedingly. It
justified, beyond any thing which I had ever suspected
to exist as a fact, what I once heard a European

affert, “that Americans had neither character
nor opinion of their own.”

With due deference to those better judges, who
despise the simplicity of our ancestors, and labour
to introduce the corrupt manners and customs of
the old world into our country, I cannot but
think it extremely ridiculous for an independent
nation, which diseards all foreign influence, glories
in its freedom, and boasts of its genius and
taste, servilely to ape exotic fashions, even in articles
of dress and fanciful ornaments.

Have not the daughters of Columbia sufficient
powers of invention to decorate themselve?
Must we depend upon the winds and waves for
the form, as well as the materials of our garb?
Why may we not follow our own inclination;
and not be deemed finical or prudish in our appearance,
merely because our habit is not exactly
correspondent with the pretty pictures in the
memorandum-books, last imported?

It is sincerely to be regretted that this subject
is viewed in so important a light. It occupies
too much of the time, and engrosses too much
of the conversation of our sex. For one, I have
serious thoughts of declaring independence.