Up to a few years ago man regarded the means of locomotion possessed
by the fair sex as a sacred areanum into which it were desecration to
inquire.
The bicycle costume has developed the fact that there are two--well,
that there are two. Whereas man bowed down and worshipped what he
could not understand nor see, when the veil of mystery was rent, his
reverence departed. For generations woman has been supposed in moving
from one place to another to simply get there. Whether borne like
Venus in an invisible car drawn by two milk white doves, or wafted
imperceptibly by the force of her own sweet will, admiring man did not
pause to consider. He only knew that there was a soft rustle of unseen
drapery, an entrancing frou-frou of something agitated but unknown and
the lovely beings would be standing on another spot. Whereat he
wondered, adoring, but uninquisitive. At times beneath the lace-hemmed
snowy skirts might be seen the toe of a tiny slipper, and perhaps the
gleam of a silver buckle upon the arch of an instep, but thence
imagination retired, baffled, but enthralled. In olden times the
sweetest singers among the poets sang to their lutes of those
Lilliputian members, and romance struck a lofty note when it wove the
deathless legend of Cinderella and the slipper of glass. Courtiers
have held aloft the silken slipper of the adored one filled with
champagne and drank her health. Where is the bicyclist hero who would
undertake the task of draining to the good health of his lady love her
bicycle gaiter filled with beer?
The mysterious and lovelorn damosel no longer chucks roses at us from
her latticed window and sighs to us from afar. She has descended,
borrowed our clothes, and is our good friend and demands equal rights.
We no longer express our admiration by midnight serenades and sonnets.
We slap her on the back and feel we have gained a good comrade. But we
feel like inserting the following want ad in every paper in the land:
Lost--A maiden dressed in long skirts: blushes sometimes,
and wears a placard round her neck, which says, "hands
off." A liberal reward will be paid for her return.
The other, day the Post Man saw a nice, clean-minded old gentleman,
who is of the old school of cavaliers, and who is loath to see woman
come down from the pedestal on which he has always viewed her.=
He was watching a lady bicycle rider go by. The Post Man asked him
what he thought.
"I never see a lady on a bicycle," said he, "but I am reminded of God,
for they certainly move in a mysterious way their wonders to perform."
(_Houston Daily Post_, Sunday morning, May 10, 1896.)