Then let us remind our Julia, with all respect
for the true greatness of that great country,
that it is not generally renowned for its
domestic rest, and that it may have yet to form
itself for its best happiness on the domestic
patterns of other lands." Such would be, in
a general way, the nature of our ground in
reasoning the point with Mrs. Bellows; but
we freely admit all this to be a question of
taste.

To return to the sucking pig, Bloomerism.
The porcine likeness is remarkable in many
particulars. In the first place, it will not do
for Mrs. Bellows to be a Budder or a Blower.
She must come out of that altogether, and be
a Bloomer. It is not enough for Mrs. Bellows
to understand that the Bloomer costume is
the perfection of delicacy. She must further
distinctly comprehend that the ordinary
evening dress of herself and her two eldest
girls (as innocent and good girls as can be) is
the perfection of indelicacy. She must not
content herself with defending the Bloomer
modesty. She must run amuck, and slander in
the new light of her advanced refinement,
customs that to our coarse minds are harmless and
beautiful. What is not indicated (in something
of the fashion of a ship's figure-head) through
the tight medium of a Bloomer waistcoat,
must be distinctly understood to be, under
any other circumstances, absolutely shocking
to persons of true refinement.

What is the next reason for which Mrs.
Bellows is called upon, in a strong-minded
way, to enrol herself a Bloomer? Tight
lacing has done a deal of harm in the world;
and Mrs. Bellows cannot by any possibility
leave off her stays, or lace them loosely,
without Blooming all over, from head to foot.
In this will be observed the true Whole
Hog philosophy. Admitting (what, of course,
is obvious to every one) that there can be
no kind of question as to the universality
among us of this custom of tight lacing;
admitting that there has been no improvement
since the days of the now venerable
caricatures, in which a lady's figure was
always represented like an hour-glass or a
wasp; admitting that there has been no
ray of enlightenment on this subject; that
marriageable Englishmen invariably choose
their wives for the smallness of their
waists, as Chinese husbands choose theirs
for the smallness of their feet; that
portrait painters always represent their
beauties in the old conventional stays; and
that the murderous custom of tight
whale-boning and lacing is not confined to a few
ignorant girls here and there, probably under
the direction of some dense old woman in
velvet, the weight of whose gorgeous turban
would seem to have settled on her brain and
addled her understanding;—admitting all
this, which is so self-evident and clear,
the next triumphant proposition is, that
Mrs. Bellows cannot come out of a pair of
stays, without instantly going into a waistcoat,
and can by no human ingenuity be set
right about the waist, without standing
pledged to pantaloons gathered and tied
about the ankles.

It further appears, that when Mrs. Bellows
goes out for a walk in dirty weather, she
splashes her long dress and spoils it, or raises
it with one hand and wounds the feelings
of Mrs. Colonel Bloomer to an insupportable
extent. Now, Mrs. Bellows may not, must
not, cannot, will not, shall not, shorten
her long dress, or adopt any other mode
that her own ingenuity (and she is a very
ingenious woman) may suggest to her of
remedying the inconvenience; but she must
be a Bloomer, a whole Bloomer, and nothing
but a Bloomer, or remain for ever a Slave
and a Pariah.

And it is a similar feature in this little pig,
that even if Mrs. Bellows chooses to become,
of her own free will and liking, a Bloomer,
that won't do. She must agitate, agitate,
agitate. She must take to the little table and
water-bottle. She must go in to be a public
character. She must work away at a Mission.
It is not enough to do right for right's sake.
There can be no satisfaction for Mrs. Bellows,
in satisfying her mind after due reflection
that the thing she contemplates is right, and
therefore ought to be done, and so in calmly
and quietly doing it, conscious that therein
she sets a righteous example which never can
in the nature of things be lost and thrown
away. Mrs. Bellows has no business to be
self-dependent, and to preserve a quiet little
avenue of her own in the world, begirt with
her own influences and duties. She must
discharge herself of a vast amount of words,
she must enlist into an Army composed
entirely of Trumpeters, she must come (with
the Misses Bellows) into a resounding Spartan
Hall for the purpose. To be sure, however,
it is to be remarked, that this is the noisy
manner in which all great social deeds have
been done. Mr. Howard, for example, put
on a shovel hat turned up with sky-blue fringe,
the moment he conceived the humane idea of
his life, and (instead of calmly executing it)
ever afterwards perpetually wandered about,
calling upon all other men to put on shovel
hats with sky-blue fringe, and declare
themselves Howardians. Mrs. Fry, in like manner,
did not tamely pass her time in Jails, devoted
with unwavering steadiness to one good
purpose, sustained by that good purpose, by her
strong conscience, and her upright heart, but
restlessly went up and down the earth, requiring
all women to come forward and be Fryars.
Grace Darling, her heroic action done, never
retired (as the vulgar suppose) into the
solitary Light-house which her father kept,
content to pass her life there in the discharge
of ordinary unexciting duties, unless the
similar peril of a fellow-creature should rouse
her to similar generous daring; but instantly
got a Darling medal struck and made a tour
through the Provinces, accompanied by several