Alphabe Thursday … S is for George Sand

It would seem that walking in the city during the 19th century was an adventure.  It was an wilderness to be explored; so much so that one had to dress the part.  George Sand for instance, found that “ on the Paris pavement I was like a boat on ice. My delicate shoes cracked open in two days, my pattens sent me spilling, and I always forgot to lift my dress. I was muddy, tired and runny-nosed, and I watch my clothes … go to rack and ruin with alarming rapidity”. She put on men’s clothes, although it seemed a subversive social act; she saw it was a practical choice. Her new outfit gave her a freedom to move, which she enjoyed; “ I can’t convey how much my boots delight me … with those steel-tipped heels I was solid on the sidewalk at last.  I dashed back and forth across Paris and felt I was going around the world. My clothes were weatherproof too.  I was out and about in all weathers, came home at all hours, was in the pits of all theaters”.

For more reading Wanderlust by Rebecca Solnit.