e day after its publication; and his daughter
yawned while his Grace's eldest son, the Marquess, made her an offer
as she was singing 'Di tanti palpiti.' The aristocrats got a little
frightened, and when an eminent hop-merchant and his lady had asked a
dozen Countesses to dinner, and forgot to be at home to receive them,
the old class left off quizzing.

The pamphlets, however, continued issuing forth, and the new people
advanced at a rate which was awful. They actually began to originate
some ideas of their own, and there was a whisper among the leaders of
voting the aristocrats old-fashioned. The Diffusion Society now caused
these exalted personages great anxiety and uneasiness. They argued that
Fashion was a relative quality; that it was quite impossible, and not to
be expected, that all people were to aspire to be fashionable; that it
was not in the nature of things, and that, if it were, society could
not exist; that the more their imitators advanced the more they should
baffle their imitations; that a first and fashion able class was a
necessary consequence of the organisation of man; and that a line
of demarcation would for ever be drawn between them and the other
islanders. The warmth and eagerness with which they maintained and
promulgated their opinions might have tempted, however, an impartial
person to suspect that they secretly entertained some doubts of their
truth and soundness.

On the other hand, the other party maintained that Fashion was a
positive quality; that the moment a person obtained a certain degree of
refinement he or she became, in fact and essentially, fashionable;
that the views of the old class were unphilosophical and illiberal, and
unworthy of an enlightened age; that men were equal, and that everything
is open to everybody; and that when we take into consideration the
nature of man, the origin of society, and a few other things, and duly
consider the constant inclination and progression towards perfection
which mankind evince, there was no reason why, in the course of time,
the whole nation should not go to Almack's on the same night.

At this moment of doubt and dispute the Government of Vraibleusia, with
that spirit of conciliation and liberality and that perfect wisdom for
which it had been long celebrated, caring very little for the old class,
whose interest, it well knew, was to support it, and being exceedingly
desirous of engaging the affections of the new race, declared in th