The
scoundrels dressed in excellent clothes, and smiled and bowed when you
met them; it was nearly the sole means of identifying them, at an
epoch, when virtue almost always went in rags.
The era of "social unrealities," to use the trenchant phrase of Daniel,
had come. Even braid on sleeves and collars did not tell you much. Who
was the fine-looking Colonel Blank, or the martial General Asterisks?
Was he a gentleman or a barber's boy--an F.F. somewhere, or an
exdrayman? The general and colonel dressed richly; lived at the
"Spottswood;" scowled on the common people; and talked magnificently.
It was only when some young lady linked her destiny to his, that she
found herself united to quite a surprising helpmate--discovered that
the general or the colonel had issued from the shambles or the gutter.
Better society was not wanting; but it remained largely in the
background. Vice was strutting in cloth of gold; virtue was at home
mending its rags. Every expedient was resorted to, not so much to keep
up appearances as to keep the wolf from the door. Servants were sent
around by high-born ladies to sell, anonymously, baskets of their
clothes. The silk or velvet of old days was now parted with for bread.
On the shelves of the bookstores were valuable private libraries,
placed there for sale.
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