The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman

I do not speak it with regard to the coarseness or cleanness of them -- or the strength of their gussets -- -- -but pray do not night-shifts differ from day-shifts as much in this particular, as in anything else in the world; That they so far exceed the others in length, that when you are laid down in them, they fall almost as much below the feet, as the day-shifts fall short of them?

Widow Wadman's night-shifts (as was the mode I suppose in King William's and Queen Anne's reigns) were cut however after this fashion; and if the fashion is changed (for in Italy they are come to nothing) -- -- -so much the worse for the public; they were two Flemish ells and a half in length; so that allowing a moderate woman two ells, she had half an ell to spare, to do what she would with.