Shops…. Stores….

This passage has caught my attention….

The Godey’s Lady’s Book 1844 page 13

Going a Shopping

“Once we had shops filled with pretty things, then we had stores; now stores have changed into immense bazaars, upon entering which , you may imagine a while town of curiosities that lie before you.

On the ground floor, spacious apartments, ornaments of splendour, counters in a new style, mirrors on all sides, a painted and waxed floor, and magnificent carpets. You imagine yourself deceived, you fancy yourself in the gallery at Versailles, and would not dare to ask for a small quantity of flannel, or a piece of waistcoating in such a palace, if it were not that you perceive a world of clerks and shop boys, coming and going, folding and unfolding, measuring shawls, and selling scarfs, silks, cravats! and a crowd of people of all classes, looking, admiring and buying. ….

… There is always a crowd before the windows – a crowd of women, young and old, pretty and ugly, all so fond of dress. How they admire these shawls, so beautifully folded, and these dresses arrayed [sic] so artistically across each other! Listen a moment. “