"Nothing to Wear," Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper, 1863

Butler, in his poem of "Nothing to Wear," made one of those hits which become immortal in literature. The inconsistency of a phrase so constantly heard in an age of extravagance, almost unexampled in history, give a point to the conventional miseries of Miss Flora McFlimsey, that drew laughter from all, even from the thousand copies of the great prototype. Few of our readers can fail to remember among the artistic beauties that covered the walls of the National Academy of Design, at its last exhibition, a charming "Nothing to Wear," from the pencil of Louis Lang. A painter of merit, and rapidly rising in the public esteem, he needs but time to assume a high rank among the artists of America. We present our readers with a copy of the beautiful piece to which we have alluded.

The figure of Miss Flora McFlimsey, amid the luxury of her boudoir, where all breathes of wealth, ancestral pride, and voluptuous ease, is charmingly conceived, and the chagrin on her fair brow, as gazing on her rich dress she is forced to confess that she has nothing to wear, is such a picture of real sorrow, that properly understood and appreciated, as it will doubtless be by our readers, it must move the sympathetic even to tears.