316 A Walk from 



interesting fact, full of promise. No American could 

 fail to admire this conservatism who appreciates national 

 individuality. No one, at heart, could more highly 

 esteem these salient traits of a people's character. And 

 here I may as well put in a few thoughts on this 

 subject as at any stage of my walk. 



Gk>od-natured reader, are you a man of sensitive 

 perceptions as to the proprieties and dignities of dress 

 and deportment which should characterise some great his- 

 torical personage whose name you have held in profound 

 veneration all your life long ? Now, in the wayward 

 drift of your imagination among the freaks of modern 

 fashion, did it ever dare to present before your eyes 

 St. Paul in strapped pantaloons, figured velvet vest, 

 swallow-tailed coat, stove-pipe hat, and a cockney glass 

 at his eye ? Did your fancy, in its wildest fictions, 

 ever pass such an image across the speculum of your 

 mental vision ? 



Grentle reader, "in maiden meditation, fancy free," 

 did a dreamy thought of yours ever stray through 

 the histories of your sex and its modes of dress and 

 adornment, and so blend or transpose them as to 

 present to you, in a sudden flash of the imagination, 

 the Virgin Mary dressed like the Empress Eugenie ? 

 Readers both, did not that fancy trouble you, as if 

 an unholy thought had fallen into the soul ? Well, 



