Posing for Effect.
To attitudinize, with the view of producing an impressive effect upon the beholder, seldom succeeds except with the rawest members of society. When detected, as it always is by accomplished people of the world, it creates, at first sight, a feeling of aversion which it is not easy to eradicate. This posing for effect is so old a trick, and so easy of detection, that it is surprising any person who has reached the years of discretion should attempt to play it. Yet how often do we see it, in its various phases of the delicate young lady with the languid air, the listless step, or die-away posture!—the literary young lady with the studiously neglected toilette, the carefully exposed breadth of forehead, and the ever-present, but seldom read book!—the abstemious young lady, who surreptitiously feeds on chops at private lunch, and starves on a pea at the public dinner!—the humane young lady, who pulls Tom’s ears and otherwise tortures brother and sister in the nursery, and does her utmost to fall into convulsions before company at sight of a dead fly!—the fastidious young lady, who faints, should there be an audience to behold the scene, at the sight of roast goose, but whose robust appetite vindicates itself by devouring all that is left of the unclean animal when a private opportunity will allow. We assure our young readers that such affectations are not only absurd, for they are perfectly transparent, but ill bred, as shams of all kinds essentially are.