Excerpt from Clarence, or a Tale of Our Own Times, Vol. 1 of 2 The chaste drapery of summer is most beautiful; but there was something in all this gorgeousness, this ostentatious brilliancy, that harmonized well with the art and glare of a city. It seemed that nature, for once, touched with the frailty of her sex, and determined to outshine them all, had don ned her jewelled robe, and come forth in all her queenly decorations in the very temple of art and fashion; for this is the temple of these divinities, and on certain hours of every auspicious day is abandon ed to the rites of their worshippers. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.