128 POLITENESS.

have a fixed costume, which continues, with
little change, from generation to generation ;
but in the great cities, all is variety and
vicissitude. In America we copy European
fashions, and there are some silly people

whose greatest desire is to be dressed in the
Parisian style.

 

Now when we are told of the Chinese
ladies, who have their feet bandaged in order
to make them small, until they can hardly
walk,— thus rendering themselves miserable
and useless, and all this to be thought gen-
teel,—we think them very absurd. Yet tell