They Jostle
Each Other Even Among Us, But Never Seem To Mix.
They are closely
allied; but neither imbues the other with her attributes.
Both
shall be equally well born, or both shall be equally ill born; but
still it is so. The contrast exists in England; but in America it
is much stronger. In England women become ladylike or vulgar. In
the States they are either charming or odious.
See that female walking down Broadway. She is not exactly such a
one as her I have attempted to describe on her entrance into the
street car; for this lady is well dressed, if fine clothes will
make well dressing. The machinery of her hoops is not battered,
and altogether she is a personage much more distinguished in all
her expenditures. But yet she is a copy of the other woman. Look
at the train which she drags behind her over the dirty pavement,
where dogs have been, and chewers of tobacco, and everything
concerned with filth except a scavenger. At every hundred yards
some unhappy man treads upon the silken swab which she trails
behind her - loosening it dreadfully at the girth one would say; and
then see the style of face and the expression of features with
which she accepts the sinner's half muttered apology. The world,
she supposes, owes her everything because of her silken train, even
room enough in a crowded thoroughfare to drag it along unmolested.
But, according to her theory, she owes the world nothing in return.
She is a woman with perhaps a hundred dollars on her back, and
having done the world the honor of wearing them in the world's
presence, expects to be repaid by the world's homage and chivalry.
But chivalry owes her nothing - nothing, though she walk about
beneath a hundred times a hundred dollars - nothing, even though she
be a woman.
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