Lectures to the Working Classes (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1858 Excerpt: ...hy the majority of his countrymen. In this. as in other things, men are influenced hy the prevailing fashion. You all kiiow how fashion influences the mind with respect to wearing apparrel. There, is Miss Love; ress; and she encases herself in an endless amount of crinoline; and promenades the street like a locomotive Arah tent; just hecause that is the fashion. Then, there is Mr. Buckram; a very common character; who, every morning, fastens round his wrists a pair of starched handcuffs, and huttons round his neck an unhending collar, which threatens to cut off his newly fledged whiskers; all, hecause that is the common fashion; and he does not like to he singular. On precisely the same principle do we find that if the stature of a man happen to he some nine or fifteen inches, ahove a medium height, people are led to regard him, as a human curiosity; while, On the other hand, if his measurement exhihit him the same numher of inches helow the medium height, we are prone to look down upon his pelU form as though it were some human inferiority. There Is often an inconvenience attending nonconformity to the common standard And, hesides this, it not infrequently suhjects a man to the innoyaDce of rude anfl hiting satire. Just as if a man could help the length of his legs, the height to which nature has carried his head, or the hreadth and thickness of the midland portion of his humanity. When a very tall gentleman happened, one day, to he walking along the street, he was met hy an impertinent urchin; who, after gazing for some time at the gentleman's lofty head and shoulders, as if he were descrying the vane on the top of some ecclesiastical spire, addressed him in an affected shout, and requested to he informed whether it were not " cold up there." Th...