First Part Chapter 4

The men, my dear, seemed to me generally very ugly. The very few
exceptions are bad copies of us. Heaven knows what evil genius has
inspired their costume; it is amazingly inelegant compared with those
of former generations. It has no distinction, no beauty of color or
romance; it appeals neither to the senses, nor the mind, nor the eye,
and it must be very uncomfortable. It is meagre and stunted. The hat,
above all, struck me; it is a sort of truncated column, and does not
adapt itself in the least to the shape of the head; but I am told it
is easier to bring about a revolution than to invent a graceful hat.
Courage in Paris recoils before the thought of appearing in a round
felt; and for lack of one day's daring, men stick all their lives to
this ridiculous headpiece.

And yet Frenchmen are said to be fickle!

The men are hideous anyway, whatever they put on their heads. I have
seen nothing but worn, hard faces, with no calm nor peace in the
expression; the harsh lines and furrows speak of foiled ambition and
smarting vanity. A fine forehead is rarely seen.

"And these are the product of Paris!" I said to Miss Griffith.

"Most cultivated and pleasant men," she replied. I was silent.

The heart of a spinster of thirty-six is a well of
tolerance. In the evening I went to the ball, where I kept close to my mother's
side. She gave me her arm with a devotion which did not miss its
reward. All the honors were for her; I was made the pretext for
charming compliments. She was clever enough to find me fools for my
partners, who one and all expatiated on the heat and the beauty of the
ball, till you might suppose I was freezing and blind. Not one failed
to enlarge on the strange, unheard-of, extraordinary, odd, remarkable
fact--that he saw me for the first time.