Having thus taken him by the eye, he took him by the mind.
"Is it a small thing for the creature to say to her Creator, 'I can pack
all this egg-china better than you can,' and thereupon to jam all
those vital organs close, by a powerful, a very powerful and ingenious
machine? Is it a small thing for that sex, which, for good reasons, the
Omniscient has made larger in the waist than the male, to say to her
Creator, 'You don't know your business; women ought to be smaller in the
waist than men, and shall be throughout the civilized world'?"
In short, he delivered so many true and pointed things on this trite
subject, that the old gentleman was convinced, and begged him to come
over that very evening and convince Rosa.
Dr. Staines shook his head dolefully, and all his fire died out of him
at having to face the fair. "Reason will be wasted. Authority is the
only weapon. My profession and my reading have both taught me that
the whole character of her sex undergoes a change the moment a man
interferes with their dress. From Chaucer's day to our own, neither
public satire nor private remonstrance has ever shaken any of their
monstrous fashions. Easy, obliging, pliable, and weaker of will than men
in other things, do but touch their dress, however objectionable, and
rock is not harder, iron is not more stubborn, than these soft and
yielding creatures.
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