They looked very queer. Their clothes seemed queer,
as they were so different from ours. They wore leather boots
instead of wooden shoes, and they all looked weak and pale.
The women were tall and thin, like beanpoles, and their
shoulders were stooped and narrow; most of them wore glasses
or spectacles, showing that their eyes were weak. The corners
of their mouths were all pulled down, and their faces were
crossed and crisscrossed with lines and wrinkles, as though
they were carrying all the care of the world. Our women all
began to laugh and dance and shout at the strangers.... The
sight of these people gave me my first idea of America. I
heard that the women there never worked, laced themselves too
tightly, and were always ill.[278]
The French dressmaker who wrote this passage has the true idea of
education and of mind. The mind is an organ for controlling the
environment, and it is a safe general principle that the mind which
shows high power in the manipulation of a simple situation will show
the same quality of efficiency in a more complex one.
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