man being, that he may start fair in the race of life. But I am not
aware that Greek women improved much, either in manners, morals, or
happiness, by acquiring them in after centuries. A wise man would sooner
see his daughter a Nausicaa than a Sappho, an Aspasia, a Cleopatra, or
even an Hypatia.

Full of such thoughts, I went through London streets, among the Nausicaas
of the present day; the girls of the period; the daughters and hereafter
mothers of our future rulers, the great Demos or commercial middle class
of the greatest mercantile city in the world: and noted what I had noted
with fear and sorrow, many a day, for many a year; a type, and an
increasing type, of young women who certainly had not had the
"advantages," "educational" and other, of that Greek Nausicaa of old.

Of course, in such a city as London, to which the best of everything,
physical and other, gravitates, I could not but pass, now and then,
beautiful persons, who made me proud of those "grandes Anglaises aux
joues rouges," whom the Parisiennes ridicule--and envy. But I could not
help suspecting that their looks showed them to be either country-bred,
or born of country parents; and this suspicion was strengthened by the
fact, that when compared with their mothers, the mother's physique was,
in the majority of cases, superior to the daughters'. Painful it was, to
one accustomed to the ruddy well-grown peasant girl, stalwart, even when,
as often, squat and plain, to remark the exceedingly small size of the
average young woman; by which I do not mean mere want of height--that is
a little matter--but want of breadth likewise; a general want of those
large frames, which indicate usually a power of keeping strong and
healthy not merely the muscles, but the brain itself.

Poor little things. I passed hundreds--I pass hundreds every day--trying
to hide their littleness by the nasty mass of false hair--or what does
duty for it; and by the ugly and useless hat which is stuck upon it,
making the head thereby look ridiculously large and heavy; and by the
high heels on which they totter onward, having forgotten, or never
learnt, the simple art of walking; their bodies tilted forward in that
ungraceful attitude which is called--why that name of all others?--a
"Grecian bend;" seemingly kept on their feet, and kept together at all,
in that strange attitude, by tight stays which prevented all graceful and
healthy motion of the hips or sides; their raiment, m