Harper's Weekly, March 14, 1857

PRATTLE AND TATTLE [first entry]

P. 164: . . .There are some among your contributors, men every inch of them, who, with all their talents, can not refrain from that very human weakness of discussing what they know nothing about. One gentleman, in particular, has a tendency to enter upon criticisms of our toilets an costumes, describes materials (always in wrong terms); informs us that we are reckles and extravant, and refers to sundry details of our habits and expenses, as if he were thoroughly "posted up" on the subject, when it is obvious to the meanest (feminine) understanding that the man is not only an impostor but an ignoramus, and has clearly never been married at all. Some of us doubt whether he could possibly have had even a sister! . . .How ridiculous! The idea of any man in his senses telling us how to dress! What we ought to wear! How much we ought not to spend, and so forth!