It makes the very cab-horses
laugh.
The truth is, that for awhile during the present century, and up to
something short of forty years ago, we had a lucid interval, and dropped
the Republican Simplicity sham, and dressed our foreign representatives
in a handsome and becoming official costume. This was discarded
by-and-by, and the swallow-tail substituted. I believe it is not now
known which statesman brought about this change; but we all know that,
stupid as he was as to diplomatic proprieties in dress, he would not have
sent his daughter to a state ball in a corn-shucking costume, nor to a
corn-shucking in a state-ball costume, to be harshly criticised as an
ill-mannered offender against the proprieties of custom in both places.
And we know another thing, viz. that he himself would not have wounded
the tastes and feelings of a family of mourners by attending a funeral in
their house in a costume which was an offence against the dignities and
decorum prescribed by tradition and sanctified by custom.
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