* * * * * On Sunday evening I was a little alarmed; they were preparing for music (sacred music was the _ostensible_ thing), but before I had time to feel uneasy, Garrick turned round and said, “Nine,[1] you are a _Sunday woman_; retire to your room--I will recall you when the music is over.” HANNAH MORE: _Letter to her sister, from Farnborough Place_, 1777, in ‘Memoirs,’ by W. Roberts. We spent an agreeable evening at Dr. Cadogan’s, where Mrs. Montagu and I, being the only two monsters in the creation who never touch a card (and laughed at enough for it we are), had the fireside to ourselves; and a more elegant and instructive conversation I have seldom enjoyed. HANNAH MORE: _Letter to her sister from London_ 1777, in ‘Memoirs,’ by W. Roberts. * * * * * I am going, to-day, to a great dinner; nothing can be conceived so absurd, extravagant and fantastical as the present mode of dressing the head. Simplicity and modesty are things so much exploded, that the very names are no longer remembered. I have just escaped from one of the most fashionable disfigurers; and though I charged him to dress me with the greatest simplicity, and to have only a very distant eye upon the fashion, just enough to avoid the pride of singularity; yet in spite of all these sage didactics, I absolutely blush at myself. HANNAH MORE: _Letter to her sister, from London_ 1776, in ‘Memoirs,’ by W. Roberts. * * * * * Again I am annoyed by the foolish absurdity of the present mode of dress. Some ladies carry on their heads a large quantity of fruit, and yet they would despise a poor useful member of society who carried it there for the purpose of selling it for bread. Some, at the back of their perpendicular caps, hang four or five ostrich feathers, of different colors, etc. Spirit of Addison! thou pure and gentle shade arise! thou who, with such fine humor, and such polished sarcasm, didst lash the cherry-colored hood and the party patches; awake! for the follies thou didst lash were but the beginning of follies; and the absurdities thou didst censure were but the seeds of absurdities! HANNAH MORE: _Letter to her sister, from London_, 1776, in ‘Memoirs,’ by W. Roberts. * * * * * The other night we had a great deal of company, eleven damsels, to say nothing of men. I protest I hardly do them justice, when I pronounce that they had, among them, on their heads, an acre and a half of shrubbery, besides slopes, grass-plots, tulip-beds, clumps of peonies, kitchen-gardens, and green-houses.... I have no doubt that they held in great contempt our roseless heads and leafless necks. HANNAH MORE: _Letter to her sister, from Burgay_, 1777, in ‘Memoirs,’ by W. Roberts. * * * * *