the bride and bridegroom at the altar or before the mayor putting on their already heavy-ruffled garments the sacred ruffle of law or religion; the babe brought to church by his mother and kindred to have the priest-tailor sew on his new garment the ruffle of baptism; the soldier in his gaudy uniform; the king in his ermine with a crown and sceptre appended; the Nabob of Ind in his gorgeous and multicolored robes; and the Papuan with horns in his nostrils and rings in his ears:
see them all pass.
“And wilt thou still add to the bewildering variety of the pageant? Or wilt have another of the higher things of the mind?
Lo, the artist this, wearing his ruffles of hair over his shoulders; and here, too, is the man of the sombrero and red flannel, which are the latest flounces of a certain set of New World poets.
Directly behind them is Dame Religion with her heavy ruffled robes, her beribboned and belaced bodices, her ornaments and sacred gewgaws. And billah , she has stuffings and paddings, too. And false teeth and foul breath! Never mind. Pass on, and let her pass.
But tarry thou a moment here. Behold this pyrotechnic display, these buntings and flags; hear thou this music and these shouts and cheers; on yonder stump is an orator dispensing to his fellow citizens spread-eagle rhetoric as empty as yonder drum: these are the elaborate and attractive ruffles of politics.
And among the crowd are genial and honest citizens who have their own way of ruffling your temper with their coarse flounces of linsey-woolsey freedom.
Wilt thou have more?”