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ON HIS WAY THROUGH THE WORLD 319
CHAPTER XIX
QU'ON EST BIEN A VINGT ANS
AFAIR correspondent—and I would parenthetically hint that
all correspondents are not fair—points out the discrepancy
existing between the text and the illustrations of our story ;
and justly remarks that the story dated more than twenty years
back, while the costumes of the actors of our little comedy are of
the fashion of to-day.
My dear madam, these anachronisms must be, or you would
scarcely be able to keep any interest for our characters. What
would be a woman without a crinoline petticoat, for example ? an
object ridiculous, hateful, I suppose hardly proper. What would
you think of a hero who wore a large high black-satin stock cascading
over a figured silk waistcoat; and a blue dress-coat, with brass
buttons, mayhap ? If a person so attired came up to ask you to
dance, could you refrain from laughing ? Time was when young
men so decorated found favour in the eyes of damsels who had never
beheld hooped petticoats, except in their grandmother's portraits.
Persons who flourished in the first part of the century never thought
to see the hoops of our ancestors' age rolled downwards to our contemporaries
and children. Did we ever imagine that a period would
arrive when our young men would part their hair down the middle,
and wear a piece of tape for a neckloth ? As soon should we have
thought of their dyeing their bodies with woad, and arraying themselves
like ancient Britons. So the ages have their dress and
undress ; and the gentlemen and ladies of Victoria's time are satisfied
with their manner of raiment ; as no doubt in Boadicea's court they
looked charming tattooed and painted blue.
The times of which we write, the times of Louis Philippe the
King, are so altered from the present, that when Philip Firmin went
to Paris it was absolutely a cheap place to live in ; and he has often
bragged in subsequent days of having lived well during a month for
five pounds, and bought a neat waistcoat with a part of the money.
" A capital bedroom, an premier, for a franc a day, sir," he would
call all persons to remark, " a bedroom as good as yours, my Lord,
at Meurice's. Very good tea or coffee breakfast, twenty francs a