“Strange or wild, or madly gay,
  They call it only pretty Fanny’s way.”

But other observers are more apt to call it only Columbia’s way; and if they had ever heard the word “girlsterousness,” they would use that too.

Emerson says, “A gentleman makes no noise; a lady is serene.”  If we Americans often violate this perfect maxim of good manners, it is something that America has, at least, furnished the maxim.  And, between Emerson and “girlsterousness,” our courteous philosopher may yet carry the day.

ARE WOMEN NATURAL ARISTOCRATS?

A clergyman’s wife in England has lately set on foot a reform movement in respect to dress; and, like many English reformers, she aims chiefly to elevate the morals and manners of the lower classes, without much reference to her own social equals.  She proposes that “no servant, under pain of dismissal, shall wear flowers, feathers, brooches, buckles or clasps, earrings, lockets, neck-ribbons, velvets, kid gloves, parasols, sashes, jackets, or trimming of any kind on dresses, and, above all, no crinoline; no pads to be worn, or frisettes, or chignons, or hair-ribbons.  The dress is to be gored and made just to touch the ground, and the hair to be drawn closely to the head, under a round white cap, without trimming of any kind.  The same system of dress is recommended for Sunday-school girls, schoolmistresses, church-singers, and the lower orders generally.”

The remark is obvious, that in this country such a course of discipline would involve the mistress, not the maid, in the “pain of dismissal.”  The American clergyman and clergyman’s wife who should even “recommend” such a costume to a schoolmistress, church-singer, or Sunday-school girl,—­to say nothing of the rest of the “lower orders,”—­would soon find themselves without teachers, without pupils, without a choir, and probably without a parish.  It is a comfort to think that even in older countries there is less and less of this impertinent interference:  the costume of different ranks is being more and more assimilated; and the incidental episode of a few liveries in our cities is not enough to interfere with the general current.  Never yet, to my knowledge, have I seen even a livery worn by a white native American; and to restrain the Sunday bonnets of her handmaidens, what lady has attempted?

This is as it should be.  The Sunday bonnet of the Irish damsel is only the symbol of a very proper effort to obtain her share of all social advantages.  Long may those ribbons wave!  Meanwhile I think the fact that it is easier for the gentleman of the house to control the dress of his groom than for the lady to dictate that of her waiting-maid,—­this must count against the theory that it is women who are the natural aristocrats.