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 638 higher altitudes; but we can see many occasions on which it might be usefully worn.

A well-made foot in a well-made boot being so attractive an object, it is a pity that the fancy of high-heels has become permanent. It cannot yet be said that high-heels have become very general, though highish heels are all but universal; and the extreme specimens have prevailed longer and more widely than is necessary for the assertion of an idea, or for the display of a taste for renaissance. That degree of elevation, which was named the military heel, is not objectionable, and it gives height—often an important advantage; but even this raises the back of the foot higher than is proper for stability in walking, and surgeons say it has a tendency to weaken the tendo Achillis, whilst everything which acts so as to throw the weight of the body forward on the toes, pressing them into the narrowest part of the boot with force, produces discomfort to the wearer, and—must the name be named?—brings corns. Far from us be those instruments which convert a pretty foot into a cornucopia!

As for those boot-heels, too frequently seen in public places, stilt-like in height, and pared away like a lead pencil, they are exceedingly dangerous, lead easily to sprains and dislocations of the ancle, and are as unnatural in their action on the muscles as the shoe of a Chinese lady. And they are not becoming. Were we to revive an entire Cinque-Cento style of dress they might be then in keeping; but, happily, our hoops are not yet supplemented by the etceteras now said to be adopted by the Empress Eugenie and her court—the ebony walking-stick, for example; to be followed, we may suppose, inevitably, by patches and hair-powder.

The foot-gear has, at all times, exercised great power over its wearers’ thoughts and affections. Nothing delights the youngest children so much as new boots. How tender and how amusing is Hans Christian Andersen’s account of his new red shoes worn at his confirmation; how they absorbed his attention, and covered him with blushes because he fancied the eyes of the whole congregation were fastened upon them. A venerable relation of our own has told us that in looking back to the extremest delights she can remember, she gives the palm to the happy day when she walked to school in a pair of new pattens, which printed the ground with the once well-known form of two parallel waved lines.

A finely-made boot is really a work of art deserving attention; and we may well excuse the pang with which its wearer first sees its beauties trodden in the mud of public ways. It has been said that a well-dressed man suffers a loss in his attire to the extent of a guinea by being caught in a shower; and we have known one of our younger friends refuse to take out his new umbrella because it rained: yet by the perverse system of walking on our feet, our boots, which have cost double the price of our hat, are subjected to the most injurious treatment, and in consequence, they become one of the most expensive parts of the wardrobe.

The game of croquet seems to have been specially invented to exhibit a lady’s foot and ancle to the greatest advantage. So delightful is the drawing of the light, firm, springy foot, booted as an Englishwoman knows how, delicately set on the ball, that the cruel, long-suspended stroke which sends us flying twenty yards away is forgiven for the beauty of the situation which preceded that calamity. The evolutions and unexpected positions of the steel skirt, also, make it indispensable that a lady’s boot and stocking should be soignées. It has been suggested that the strong pressure of elastic sides to boots injures the form of the foot, making it crow-heeled. Here our experience is at fault, and we will not pronounce decisively; but this we will assert, that there is a description of lower limb which does not become a tightly-fitting boot, when above the stringency of the compressed foot and ancle-joint flesh and blood strive not unsuccessfully to assert their dimensions, swelling and even overflowing their bondage with bursting power,—

Well-fitted as is a well-fitting boot for walking, there is nothing comparable in-doors, for either sex, to the shoe and silk-stocking. White and pale-tinted kid-boots may be worn with discretion by ladies for dancing. They do not suit all persons, though there are some feet that would look well in a clod-hopper’s high-lows or anything else. The French kid shoe, with etherial lace-like thread stocking in the house, and the rosetted satin slipper over silken hose for evening wear, have always seemed to us to come near perfection. When men began to wear patent leather boots at dinners and dances, violence was inflicted on our traditions, our feelings of propriety, and our aesthetic sensitivities. They prevailed, like the insidious advance of democracy; but there long remained in more antique minds an uneasy sense, when contemplating them, of something out of doors about a boot at night, however firm and polished. It was akin to the feeling we experience in some of our new churches which have side aisles of pointed brick. We are conscious of a struggle going on in the mind—a struggle as of having to keep ourselves within the building, whilst every side glance brings the suggestion that we are still outside. In fact, a man with a moderately small foot and good instep is unwise to forego the completeness of shoes and silk-stockings worn in dress.

The black silk (originally beaver) hat has been for years obnoxious to remark and ridicule. Yet those who have been most ready to take the hat off are not so ready to supply a succedaneum for the head. It is all very well for a country gentleman to move about his own neighbourhood in a straw fishing-hat: and on a long railroad journey any and every kind of cap and covering is permissible; but those who live in great cities and have a character to support are always driven back to the old, inevitable black silk hat. Every substitute has been tried, and a great deal of sentiment has been talked on the subject, and not a little courage has been shown in very abnormal exhibitions of the head. But all in vain. The hat, like the ghost of the Amundevilles, will not be driven away. Here and there we