Nothing to Wear
for this section is not only rather loosely connected with the rest of the poem, but it is here that the inspiration is most obviously being flogged along.
“Nothing to Wear” became almost instantly popular in England as well as in this country. It was published in book form in London; Harriet Martineau quoted it entire in an article on “Female Dress” in the Westminster Review; it invaded the continent, and was translated into French, with a foot-note explaining that the Mrs. Harris referred to in the opening lines as “famous in history,” was a lady who had lost her life at Niagara Falls; a German translation with illustrations appeared in the Almanach de Gotha. Evidently it appealed to all peoples, for of course there were Flora McFlimseys in Belgravia and on the Avenue du Bois de Boulogne, as well as on Madison Square—and equally, of course, there still are.
“It does not indeed find her posterity in Madison Square,” says Mr. Howells; “the fashion that once abode there has fled to upper Fifth Avenue, to the discordant variety of handsome residences which overlook the Park. But there it finds her descendants quite one with her in spirit, and as little clothed to their lasting satisfaction. Still they shop in Paris, still they arrive in all the steamers with their spoil, still it shrinks and withers to nothing in their keep-
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