Later, the foot would not expand to the natural
size were you to give her a washing-tub for a shoe and for all her life
she has little feet, and is a cripple. Oh, my dear Miss Wiggins, thank
your stars that those beautiful feet of yours--though I declare when you
walk they are so small as to be almost invisible--thank your stars that
society never so practised upon them; but look around and see how
many friends of ours in the highest circles have had their BRAINS so
prematurely and hopelessly pinched and distorted.
How can you expect that those poor creatures are to move naturally when
the world and their parents have mutilated them so cruelly? As long as
a COURT CIRCULAR exists, how the deuce are people whose names are
chronicled in it ever to believe themselves the equals of the cringing
race which daily reads that abominable trash? I believe that ours is the
only country in the world now where the COURT CIRCULAR remains in full
flourish--where you read, 'This day his Royal Highness Prince Pattypan
was taken an airing in his go-cart.' 'The Princess Pimminy was taken a
drive, attended by her ladies of honour, and accompanied by her doll,'
&c. We laugh at the solemnity with which Saint Simon announces that SA
MAJESTE SE MEDICAMENTE AUJOURD'HUI. Under our very noses the same folly
is daily going on. That wonderful and mysterious man, the author of the
COURT CIRCULAR, drops in with his budget at the newspaper offices every
night.
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