Excerpt from The Confessions of an Elderly Lady Times are indeed sadly changed! Fashion, a nonde script which, like Milton's allegorical personification of death, has no definite shape, has now usurped the place of decorum; and, like death, levels all distinctions. This same fashion is a monstrous growth of these degenerate days, which, like the idol of Juggernaut, often crushes those who prostrate themselves before her revolving wheel. It is the sworn foe to all that is good and respectable; and encourages only the parvenus which spring up beneath its unwholesome shade, as does the fungus beneath that of some tree, whose deleterious moisture gives it birth. Well I, at least, have not bowed down and worshipped this colossal idol. I have not left the residence of my ancestors, because fashion had proscribed its precincts, to become the neighbour of some returned nabob, or retired bill-broker, with no recommendation save his ill-acquired wealth. I have not dismantled my mansion of its cumbrous but richly carved furniture, to adopt, at a later period, a composition in imitation of it. No - I saw the rage for Grecian and Roman decoration pass by, as calmly as I have since seen them replaced by the angular ameublement of the melo-dramatic Emperor of the French; and have lived to witness the solid magnifi cence of the fourteenth Louis, revived by those who are as incapable of comprehending, as of emulating the splendour and abilities of that dignified model for kings. I smile at beholding the ill-executed imitations in the mansions of my acquaintance, of the costly furniture which, from mine, has never been displaced; while they would gladly purchase back their ancestral possessions from ahe brokers who have collected them to sell again at more than thrice their original cost. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.