Page:A short history of social life in England.djvu/265

Rh head out of order. Threw by my work and read. "3-4.—Dined. "4-12.—Dressed, went abroad and play'd Crimp till midnight. Found Mrs. Spitely at home. Conversation: Mrs. Brilliant's necklace false stones; Old Lady Loveday going to be married to a young Fellow that is not worth a groat; Miss Prue gone into the Country; Tom Townely has real hair. "Twelve o'clock at Night.—Went to bed. Melancholy dreams."

Little enough education was obviously required to spend life in this fashion. There was little domestic life, as we understand it to-day, in town; men spent their evenings at the coffee-house or tavern or theatre, and women were left to amuse themselves and gossip and play cards as they liked. Of course, they went to the theatre too, but often enough the plays were of such a coarse nature that they had to go masked, for fear of recognition. In the country social life, if still trivial, was of a more wholesome nature, as indeed it ever has been and will be. Even so, men and women grew prematurely old in these days: girls were introduced into society at the age of thirteen