Hyde Park in a week. As it is impossible to display the productions of the millinery art in a close carriage in a crowd, Broadway is the fashionable promenade; and the lightest French bonnets, the handsomest mantles, and the richest flounced silk dresses, with jupons, ribands, and laces to correspond, are there to be seen in the afternoon. Evening attire is very much the same as in England, only that richer materials are worn by the young. The harmony of colours appears to be a subject studied to some purpose, and the style of dress is generally adapted to the height, complexion, and figure of the wearer.
The figures of the American ladies in youth are very sylph-like and elegant; and this appearance is obtained without the use of those artificial constraints so justly to be condemned. They are almost too slight for beauty, though this does not signify while they retain the luxuriant wavy hair, brilliant complexion, elastic step, and gracefulness of very carly youth. But unfortunately a girl of twenty is too apt to look faded and haggard; and a woman who with us would be in her bloom at thirty, looks passée, wrinkled, and old. It is then that the sylph-like form assumes an unpleasant angularity, suggestive of weariness and care. It is remarkable, however, that ladies of recent English extraction, under exactly the same circumstances, retain their good looks into middle life, and advancing years produce embonpoint, instead of angularity. I was very agreeably surprised with the beauty of the young ladies of New York; there is something peculiarly graceful and fascinating in their personal appearance.
To judge from the costly articles of jewellery displayed
