Country life; London (England) -- Description and travel; Natural history -- Outdoor books
Some people become famous by being always in one attitude. Meet them
when you will, they have invariably got an arm--the same arm--crossed
over the breast, and the hand thrust in between the buttons of the coat
to support it. Morning, noon, or evening, in the street, the carriage,
sitting, reading the paper, always the same attitude; thus they achieve
social distinction; it takes the place of a medal or the red ribbon.
What is a general or a famous orator compared to a man always in the
same attitude? Simply nobody, nobody knows him, everybody knows the
mono-attitude man. Some people make their mark by invariably wearing
the same short pilot coat. Doubtless it has been many times renewed,
still it is the same coat. In winter it is thick, in summer thin, but
identical in cut and colour. Some people sit at the same window of the
reading-room at the same hour every day, all the year round. This is
the way to become marked and famous; winning a battle is nothing to it.
When it was arranged that a military band should play on the Brunswick
Lawns, it became the fashion to stop carriages in the road and listen
to it. Frequently there were carriages four deep, while the gale blew
the music out to sea and no one heard a note. Still they sat content.
There are more handsome women in Brighton than anywhere else in the
world. They are so common that gradually the standard of taste in the
mind rises, and good-looking women who would be admired in other places
pass by without notice. Where all the flowers are roses, you do not see
a rose. They are all plump, not to say fat, which would be rude; very
plump, and have the glow and bloom of youth upon the cheeks. They do
not suffer from "pernicious anaemia," that evil bloodlessness which
London physicians are not unfrequently called upon to cure, when the
cheeks are white as paper and have to be rosied with minute doses of
arsenic. They extract their arsenic from the air. The way they step and
the carriage of the form show how full they are of life and spirits.
Sarah Bernhardt will not come to Brighton if she can help it, lest she
should lose that high art angularity and slipperiness of shape which
suits her _role_. Dresses seem always to fit well, because people
somehow expand to them. It is pleasant to see the girls walk, because
the limbs do not drag, the feet are lifted gaily and with ease.
Horse-exercise adds a deeper glow to the face; they ride up on the
Downs first, out of pure cunning, for the air there is certain to
impart a freshness to the features like dew on a flower, and then
return and walk their horses to and fro the King's Road, certain of
admiration. However often these tricks are played, they are always
successful. Those philanthropic folk who want to reform women's dress,
and call upon the world to observe how the present style contracts the
chest, and forces the organs of the body out of place (what a queer
expression it seems, "organs"!) have not a chance in Brighton. Girls
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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