The hoopskirt runs its course and disappears. Nobody reasons about it. One woman abandons the fashion; her neighbor notices this and follows her lead; this influences the next woman; and so on and so on, and presently the skirt has vanished out of the world, no one knows how nor why, nor cares, for that matter. It will come again by and by and in due course will go again.

伞状裙流行一阵后就消失了。没有人对其寻根问底。一个女人放弃了这种时髦裙式，她的邻居注意到了，也跟着放弃了；这又影响了下一个妇女，就这样一位接着一位，久而久之这种裙子就在世界上销声匿迹了，没有人知道它是如何或是为什么消失的，也没人在意。它将在不久以后重新流行，又再次离去。
Twenty-five years ago, in England, six or eight wine glasses stood grouped by each person's plate at a dinner party, and they were used, not left idle and empty; today there are but three or four in the group, and the average guest sparingly uses about two of them. We have not adopted this new fashion yet, but we shall do it presently. We shall not think it out; we shall merely conform, and let it go at that. We get our notions and habits and opinions from outside influences; we do not have to study them out.
二十五年前在英国的晚宴上，六只或八只酒杯会被分类摆放在各位用餐者的餐碟旁边，而各个杯子都会用到，没有哪只闲罝不用；如今，每组只有三到四只酒杯，一般的客人节约起来只用其中的两只酒杯。我们目前还没有接受这种新潮流，但不久以后我们也会这么做。我们对此不会仔细思考，只要照做就行了，就让它继续好了。我们从外界的影响力中获取想法、习惯与观点，我们没有必要仔细研究它们。