Page:A thousand years hence. Being personal experiences (IA thousandyearshen00gree).djvu/364

 to preserve, in full integrity, the bath principle; and more especially as to that critical period when even the very handsomest of their day must, at last, by the natural attacks of time, be either shrouded in the blighting and abhorred gown, or, as the sad alternative, be entirely expelled from the esthetic scene. Many a fair dame, who differs entirely from her judges on the point in question, and resents what she regards as their erroneous or premature decision, takes alike her consolation and her revenge, by strutting about publicly and gownless, everywhere else, in order to show her own confidence, at least, in her still remaining charms and graces. Our landlady happened to be one of those prematurely blighted ones; and even now, after a further good dozen of years, she courageously persists in her daily challenge parade. She will occasionally pose before young Brown and me, of a morning in the garden, and without a particle of clothing, that we can detect, except her spectacles. When the odd novelty of the thing had worn off, we would both, on such affecting and trying occasions, bolt off like a shot to the preferable Esthetic Walk.

White has established here a line of small packets, which ply from the First Jovian to the three other moons outside, but only towards the times when they are respectively in near "opposition," at which times, of course, their distance is much diminished. It is only in this energy-economizing way, and with an occasional excursion, for wondering Ioan sightseers, in the direction of Jupiter, that the line can be made