Such delightful people as I would see!
Ladies, tricked out in pink filminess of raiment, ever striving to clutch one more handful of their frou-frou, as it waggishly eluded their grasp, and dawdled along the pavement behind them.
Yet, strange to say, the flapping frilliness rarely becomes muddily bedraggled, as it would on a New York street; it merely achieves that palpable grayness which marks everything in London, from its palaces to its laundry work.
The headgear of these same ladies can be called nothing less than alarming.
The headgear of these same ladies can be called nothing less than alarming.
During the summer of which I write, it was the whim to wear huge shapes of the mushroom or butter-bowl variety. These shapes, instead of being decorated with flowers or feathers, bore skilfully contrived fruits, that looked so like real ones I was often tempted to pluck them. Cherries and grapes were not so entirely novel, but peaches, pears, and in one instance a banana, seemed, at least, mildly ludicrous. I was rejoiced to learn that these fruits, being stuffed with cotton-wool, were not so weighty as they appeared; but they were indeed bulky, and crowded on to the hat in such quantities that it seemed more sensible to turn the butter-bowl the other side up to hold them.
Owen Seaman calls the English “the misunderstood people,” but how can one understand those who put fly-nets on the tops of their cabs instead of on their horses, and wear peaches on their heads?
As difficult to understand as their own handwriting (and more than that cannot be said!), after the solution is puzzled out the Londoners are the most delightful people in the world.
But you must accept the solution, and take them at their own valuation; for they are unadaptable, and very sure of themselves.