Page:The world's show, 1851, or, The adventures of Mr. and Mrs. Sandboys and family, who came up to London to "enjoy themselves", and to see the Great Exhibition (IA worldsshow1851or00mayh).pdf/44

 decision of character, and yet no man was more undecided. Theoretically he was steel, but practically he was only case-hardened with a surface of philosophy.

As he journeyed along the road to Cockermouth, he was busy revolving in his own mind the incidents of the previous week. Had he allowed himself to be conquered by circumstances? Had he permitted the loss of his nether garments to wrest him from his purpose? Had he, because deprived of the distinctive feature of his "outward man," been led to play the woman? Had he forgotten all that he had been so long teaching himself, and lost all that made Man admirable when he lost his breeches? "True," he said, "Man was but a savage without such things—but then," he asked himself, "might he not become effeminate with them?"

And as he trudged along the winding Hause, chewing the cud of his thoughts, the Buttermere philosopher got to look upon the ineffable part of Man's apparel as one of the many evils of civilized life—the cause of much moral weakness and social misery. If such garments were not naturally effeminate, why," he went on inquiring of himself, "should all women have so great a desire to wear them? Were they not," he said, "the cause of more than half of the conjugal contentions of the present day?—Was not matrimony, generally, one long struggle between man and wife as to who should possess these insignia of the domestic monarchy?"

And thus the unconventional Mr. Sandboys proceeded in his sartorial catechism, until he got to convince himself that Sin originally came into the world with breeches, and that the true meaning of the allegory of the apple was, that the Serpent had tempted the great Mother Eve with a pair.

While Mr. Sandboys was thus philosophically reviewing his conduct, the more domestic partner of his bosom was mentally "looking after" the luggage that she had left behind in charge of Postlethwaite and Ann Lightfoot, until she could send a suitable conveyance for it. Though it had been agreed that the family were but to stay a week in the Metropolis, and Mr. Sandboys, knowing that women, when on the wing, want the Peacock's faculty of packing up their fine feathers in the smallest possible compass, had given strict injunctions that they should take only such things as were absolutely necessary. But, primitive as were the denizens of Buttermere, and far removed as its mountain-fastnesses seemed from the realms of fashion, the increased facilities of intercommunication had not failed to diffuse a knowledge of Polkas and Crinolines among the female portion of its pastoral people; so that what with "best bonnets," and "dress caps," that had to be stowed away in square black boxes kept expressly for them—and gowns, with so many breadths and flounces, that, to prevent being crushed, they required nearly a whole trunk to themselves—and morning dresses and evening dresses—and cardinals and paletots—and be-laced and be-frilled night-caps and night-gowns—all equally incompressible—and muffs and tippets—and whiskers and artificial flowers and feathers—and bustles and false fronts, that did not admit of any