Page:Romance & Reality 1.pdf/89

Rh No woman looks well walking in the street: she either elbows her way in all the disagreeableness of independence, or else shuffles along as if ashamed of what she is doing; her bonnet has always been met by some unlucky wind which has destroyed half its shape, and all its set: if fine weather, her shoes are covered with dust, and if dirty, the petticoat is defyingly dragged through the mud, or, still more defyingly, lifted on one side to show the black leather boot, and draggled in deepest darkness on the other. No female, at least none with any female pretensions, should ever attempt to walk, except on a carpet, a turf, or a terrace. As for the men, one half look as if they were running on an errand or from an arrest, or else were creeping to commit suicide. So much for the pavement. Then the shops on either side, can human industry or ingenuity go farther? Ah, human felicity! to have at once so many wants suggested and supplied! Wretched Grecian daughters! miserable Roman matrons! to whom shopping was an unknown pleasure, what did, what could employ them? Harm, no doubt; for