Sketches of the Fair Sex, in All Parts of the World.: To which are added rules for determining the precise figure, the degree of beauty, the habits, and the age of women, notwithstanding the aids and disguise of dress.Anonymous
History
Sketches of the Fair Sex, in All Parts of the World.: To which are added rules for determining the precise figure, the degree of beauty, the habits, and the age of women, notwithstanding the aids and disguise of dress.
Anonymous
Women
The ladies at the principal courts, differ not much in their dress from
the French and English. They are not, however, so excessively fond of
paint as the former. At some courts, they appear in rich furs: and all
of them are loaded with jewels, if they can obtain them. The female part
of the burgher's families, in many of the German towns, dress in a very
different manner, and some of them inconceivably fantastic, as may be
seen in many prints published in books of travels. But, in this respect,
they are gradually reforming, and many of them make quite a different
appearance in their dress from what they did thirty or forty years ago.
The inhabitants of Vienna lived luxuriously, a great part of their time
being spent in feasting and carousing. In winter, when the different
branches of the Danube are frozen over, and the ground covered with
snow, the ladies take their recreation in sledges of different shapes,
such as griffins, tigers, swans, scallop-shells, etc. Here the lady
sits, dressed in velvet lined with rich furs, and adorned with laces and
jewels, having on her head a velvet cap. The sledge is drawn by one
horse, stag or other creature, set off with plumes of feathers, ribbons
and bells. As this diversion is taken chiefly in the night time,
servants ride before the sledge with torches; and a gentleman, standing
on the sledge behind, guides the horse.
A VIEW OF MATRIMONY IN THREE DIFFERENT LIGHTS.
The marriage life is always an insipid, a vexatious, or a happy
condition, the first is, when two people of no taste meet together, upon
such a settlement as has been thought reasonable by parents and
conveyancers, from an exact valuation of the land and cash of both
parties. In this case the young lady's person is no more regarded than
the house and improvements in purchase of an estate; but she goes with
her fortune, rather than her fortune with her. These make up the crowd
or vulgar of the rich, and fill up the lumber of the human race, without
beneficence towards those below them, or respect towards those above
them; and lead a despicable, independent, and useless life, without
sense of the laws of kindness, good-nature, mutual offices, and the
elegant satisfactions which flow from reason and virtue.
The vexatious life arises from a conjunction of two people of quick
taste and resentment, put together for reasons well known to their
friends, in which especial care is taken to avoid (what they think the
chief of evils) poverty; and ensure them riches with every evil besides.
These good people live in a constant restraint before company, and when
alone, revile each other's person and conduct. In company they are in
purgatory; when by themselves, in hell.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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