gaslight-sightseers

Updated: June 26, 2025

And this they have gained by so-called civilisation: the power of aping the "fashions" by which the worn-out "Parisienne" hides her own personal defects; and of making themselves, by innate want of that taste which the "Parisienne" possesses, only the cause of something like a sneer from many a cultivated man; and of something like a sneer, too, from yonder gipsy woman who passes by, with bold bright face, and swinging hip, and footstep stately and elastic; far better dressed, according to all true canons of taste, than most town- girls; and thanking her fate that she and her "Rom" are no house- dwellers and gaslight-sightseers, but fatten on free air upon the open moor.

Charles Kingsley - Sanitary and Social Lectures, etc