d couple are invited to a wedding dinner. Though the lady,
perhaps, has run off with a person below her in rank and station, see
when they enter the room, how differently they behave.--How gracefully
she waves her head in the fine recover from the withdrawing curtsy, and
beautifully extends her hand to the bald-pated individual grinning to
her on the rug! While the poor spoon, her husband, looks on, with the
white of his eyes turned up as if he were sea-sick, and his hands dangle
dangle on his thighs as if he were trying to lift his own legs. See how
he ducks to the lady of the house, and simpers across the fire-place to
his wife, who, by this time is giving a most spirited account of the
state of the roads, and the civility of the postilions near the Borders.
Is a man little? Let him always, if possible, stoop. We are sometimes
tempted to lay sprawling in the mud fellows of from five feet to five
feet eight, who carry the back of their heads on the extreme summit of
their back-bone, and gape up to heaven as if they scorned the very
ground. Let no little man wear iron heels. When we visit a friend of
ours in Queen-street we are disturbed from our labours or conversation
by a sound which resembles the well-timed marching of a file of infantry
or a troop of dismounted dragoons. We hobble as fast as possible to the
window, and are sure to see some chappie of about five feet high
stumping on the pavement with his most properly named cuddy-heels; and
we stake our credit, we never yet heard a similar clatter from any of
his majesty's subjects of a rational and gentlemanly height--We mean
from five feet eleven (our own height) up to six feet three.
Is a man tall? Let him never wear a surtout. It is the most unnatural,
and therefore the most awkward dress that ever was invented. On a tall
man, if he be thin, it appears like a cossack-trouser on a stick leg; if
it be buttoned, it makes his leanness and lankness still more appalling
and absurd; if it be open, it appears to be no part of his costume, and
leads us to suppose that some elongated habit-maker is giving us a
specimen of that rare bird, the flying tailor.
We go on a visit to the country for a few days, and the neighbourhood is
famous for its beautiful prospects. Though, for our own individual
share, we would rather go to the catacombs alone, than to a splendid
view in a troop, we hate to balk young people! and as even now a
walking-stick chair is generally carried a
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