I did not see any of them carrying
lorgnettes or shower bouquets, but I think, in summer they wear
veils.
One opportunity is afforded the European who is neither a soldier
nor a hotel cashier to dress himself up in comic-opera clothes
--and that is when he a-hunting goes. An American going hunting
puts on his oldest and most serviceable clothes--a European his
giddiest, gayest, gladdest regalia. We were so favored by gracious
circumstances as to behold several Englishmen suitably attired for
the chase, and we noted that the conventional morning costume of
an English gentleman expecting to call informally on a pheasant
or something during the course of the forenoon consisted, in the
main, of a perfect dear of a Norfolk jacket, all over plaits and
pockets, with large leather buttons like oak-galls adhering thickly
to it, with a belt high up under the arms and a saucy tail sticking
out behind; knee-breeches; a high stock collar; shin-high leggings
of buff or white, and a special hat--a truly adorable confection
by the world's leading he-milliner.
If you dared to wear such an outfit afield in America the very
dickeybirds would fall into fits as you passed--the chipmunks would
lean out of the trees and just naturally laugh you to death! But
in a land where the woodlands are well-kept groves, and the
undergrowth, instead of being weedy and briery, is sweet-scented
fern and gorse and bracken, I suppose it is all eminently correct.
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