She bought French clothes; her brothers took the hint
from her, and hied them to Paris and Vienna to pursue their studies;
penetrated to Pekin and Constantinople, and hunted the tiger in the
jungles of India, while popper's pudgy purse grew more and more
plethoric despite the drafts upon it. Purification by pie waned, and
the first Queen Anne cottage reared its head.
I wooed and won Josephine in those early, transitory days when the
influence of the past was still upon us, though we foresaw and caught
glimpses of the new. We were simple souls. I believe that Josephine's
wagon was hitched to a star; else I could not have loved her. And she
believed the same of mine. She wandered in the panoply of her maiden
independence to far-off rookeries attended by me only (or some other
swain only). Though we were fain to discuss De Musset and Herbert
Spencer, Darwin and Dobson, George Eliot and Philip Gilbert
Hamerton--strange names to the elder generation--our scheme of life was
still essentially grave and plain for all Josephine's Japanese sunshade
and tendency to make the most of her willowy figure. Little did we
dream of the later development which, like a huge wave, was to sweep
over the land of the free and the home of the brave, overwhelming its
native simplicity with the virtues, tastes, and vices of the other
nations against which our forefathers barred the door.
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