Page:Blanchard on L. E. L.pdf/88

seen for a long time. He was remarking that the Indians have such extreme flexibility of ears that they can move them as easily as we do our eyebrows—and that in all savage nations the toes are so useful, that they can pick up things just as we do with our fingers. It is curious to observe how many bodily faculties lie dormant in a social state. It is as if mind and body were at perpetual variance, and that the perfection of the one must be bought at the expense of the other. Lady——had on a most picturesque head-dress, an Italian silk net, twisted round the hair, of green ribbon. I am no great admirer of the fanciful in costume generally, but this was very simple and pretty. But, while on the subject of dress, I must tell you of a new style of shawl I saw on Mrs.——. It is formed of broad stripes of different coloured velvets; first, a rich dahlia, then orange, then such a green! a golden brown, and the loveliest of blues! It is very large, and lined with amber silk. I never saw anything so magnificent and oriental. Mr.—— has only just given her a diamond necklace of two thousand guineas, and a diamond bandeau ditto. It is quite enough to make any body wish to be married. . . . The Haymarket has been quite unvisited this season; but I have been once to the Victoria, the prettiest little theatre in London. I was so delighted with Miss Jarman as Jeannie Deans—so sensible, so natural, and so affecting, and speaking, too, the most Doric Scotch. But the principal event, in my late monotonous existence, has been going to see Apsley House, which is fitted up with even more good taste than splendour. There are many portraits of Napoleon, one by David, the most speaking likeness that ever was seen. Indeed, the whole house is a most interest-