And would all this trouble have come upon the land if the men had stayed at home managing business and the women had done the legislating? Was a woman ever known to take a frozen viper to her bosom? This great triumph was left for man to accomplish. After the sad experience of masculine politicians, I trust they will be content to remain quietly at home and let wiser and weaker heads take the affairs of the nation into their hands, and our word for it Charles Sumner and Thaddeus Stevens, the cause of this anguish, will have to hide their diminished heads. Sumner and Stevens are both unmarried men; they have been bachelors ever since they were born, and this headstrong course which they have taken, bringing anguish and woe into every city and hamlet in the land, is owing to the want of the softening and refining influence of woman. The President didn’t mention this fact from the balcony of the White House, but he no doubt would have done so if Messrs. Clampit and Aiken (counsel for the conspirators) had called his attention to it. If some of my readers take exception to the political caste of the beginning of this letter, I will say that nothing else is thought of in Washington, much less talked about, and it is surprising to see the ladies conning newspapers that are devoted exclusively to politics. Never, since the opening guns upon Sumter, has so much feeling been expressed. The solemnities of Lent are upon us, but, as the heads of the church wisely say that no fast need be indulged in if it endangers the health and life of the penitent--and fasting always does so--the fair Episcopalians of Washington, those of my acquaintance, take the season of Lent to repair their constitutions which have been so sadly used in the whirl of gayety and the frivolity of fashionable life. I am glad the gay season is over. How comfortable to pack away ermine, and banish moire antiques to trunks seldom or never used, there to repose until another season, in company with odors of “night blooming cereus” or some such delicate perfume. But the best use which can be made of dresses which have done duty for one winter is to send them off by express to country cousins. But one must be careful what kind of country cousins one has, for any little generous act of this kind might upset one’s cream for a whole summer. It is a solemn fact that ladies have such sharp eyes that they can detect an old dress made new instantly, and any woman who has the audacity, for the sake of a little well-meant but foolish economy, to humbug her friends of the community in this way deserves the fate which is sure to be meted out to her--that of a little downward slide on the social scale. This applies to the extreme fashionables.