text:  But those times have happily gone by; and after passing through a transition state of minor absurdity--(look to the prints of the _Belle Assemblee_ from 1800 to 1815)--we have thrown away all unnatural short waists; we have discarded scanty skirts; stomachers have been sent nearly to the right about; and with the exception of a single opisthodomic folly--to which we do not care to allude more particularly--our better halves and our fair friends seem to have entered upon an age of good taste and good sense