They never sleep, go
nowhere, stay nowhere, eat nothing, and know nobody, but are up to
anything, though it were the Genesis of nature, or the last
Cataclasm, -- Festus-like, Faust-like, Jove-like; and could write an
Iliad any rainy morning, if fame were not such a bore. Men, women,
though the greatest and fairest, are stupid things; but a rifle, and
a mild pleasant gunpowder, a spaniel, and a cheroot, are themes for
Olympus. I fear it was in part the influence of such pictures on
living society, which made the style of manners, of which we have so
many pictures, as for example, in the following account of the
English fashionist. "His highest triumph is to appear with the most
wooden manners, as little polished as will suffice to avoid
castigation, nay, to contrive even his civilities, so that they may
appear as near as may be to affronts; instead of a noble high-bred
ease, to have the courage to offend against every restraint of
decorum, to invert the relation in which our sex stand to women, so
that they appear the attacking, and he the passive or defensive
party."
We must here check our gossip in mid volley, and adjourn the
rest of our critical chapter to a more convenient season.
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