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Fashion in New York.
Our New York Correspondence
New York, November 5, 1860
Should any incoherencies or discrepancies be apparent in the bulletin of La Mode for this month, please credit it all to the important fact that I am writing upon the eve of election day, to which my own restlessness gives double zest.
I am fully aware that to be a woman, especially a young one – that is, one who has yet to discover a wrinkle, fading roses, and a gray hair – is to be a little feminine animal, just “conscious of pearls and purple,” chicken and cream, Tennyson and Bulwer, until resigned to Point lace, orange blossoms, a complete trousseau, and a husband.
I own to transgressing the law, to breaking through the conventialities that hedge in woman, to positively forget Fashion, in the rage for Politics.
Pray don’t accuse me of a desire to vote, or of being in the faintest degree an advocate of woman’s rights, or anything of that sort. Heaven forefend! But I say it, and I say it boldly, that a woman is not worth a sous if she has not influence and fascination enough to control votes, minister to minds diseased, and cleanse the brains and masculine hearts of that foul black dye threatening us like a pestilence. Thus is happens that your correspondent has been excessively busy during the last month, making converts, sacrificing friendships, wondering how Charlotte Corday felt once upon a time, and, in fact being accused of downright haughtiness. N’importe, Messieurs of the South – born among you, I am yours heart and soul.
Being a dear lover of the dolce far niente, I cannot but feel all this turbulence and warfare excessively annoying, while dreamily pondering over the curse of Kehama, especially the line:
“Days after days, unvarying come and go.”
utterly beyond my comprehension, at present, but for the realization of which I would be glad to yield my very last new love of a bonnet.
Citation: Charleston Mercury, 9 November 1860. Gift of Steven and Susan Raab. AN .C477
On November 8, “The tea has been thrown overboard, the revolution of 1860 has been initiated.” Charleston, Mercury.
President James Buchanan, called a Cabinet meeting and the meeting was divided between those who opposed Southern secession and those who didn’t.
The New York Tribune writes, “We hope never to live in a republic whereof one section is pinned to the residue by bayonets.”