niceries

Updated: May 27, 2025

I must be a lady, and I will be a lady. I like some humours of the city dames well; to eat cherries only at an angel a pound; good: to dye rich scarlet black; pretty: to line a grogram gown clean through with velvet; tolerable: their pure linen, their smocks of three pound a smock, are to be borne withal: but your mincing niceries, taffity pipkins, durance petticoats, and silver bodkins God's my life! as I shall be a lady, I cannot endure it.

William Hazlitt - Table Talk : Essays on Men and Manners