Fashion Is So Generally Attended To Among The English Women, That
The Poorest Maid-Servant Is Careful To Be In The Fashion.
They seem
to be particularly so in their hats or bonnets, which they all wear:
and they are in my opinion far more becoming than the very unsightly
hoods and caps which our German women, of the rank of citizens,
wear.
There is, through all ranks here, not near so great a
distinction between high and low as there is in Germany.
I had, during this day, a little headache; which rendered me more
silent and reserved to my company than is either usual in England or
natural to me. The English are taxed, perhaps too hastily, with
being shy and distant to strangers. I do not think this was, even
formerly, their true character; or that any such sentiment is
conveyed in Virgil's "Hospitibus feros." Be this as it may, the
case was here reversed. The Englishman here spoke to me several
times in a very friendly manner, while I testified not the least
inclination to enter into conversation with him.
He however owned afterwards that it was this very apparent reserve
of mine that first gained me his good opinion.
He said he had studied physic, but with no immediate view of
practising it. His intention, he said, was to go to the East
Indies, and there, first, to try his fortune as an officer. And he
was now going to Birmingham, merely to take leave of his three
sisters, whom he much loved, and who were at school there.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 134 of 199
Words from 36294 to 36557
of 53881
