midnight
The dim , spectral paleness of the eastern sky by degrees received a clearer and healthier tinge , just as the wan cheek of an invalid assumes slowly , but certainly , the glow of returning health . Early as it was , an odd individual was visible here and there , and it may , be observed , that at a very early hour every person visible in the streets is characterized by a chilly and careworn appearance , looking , with scarcely an exception , both solitary and sad , just as if they had not a single friend on earth , but , on the contrary , were striving to encounter ; struggles and difficulties which they were incompetent to meet . As our travellers entered the city , that bygone class who , as guardians of the night , were appointed to preserve the public peace , every one of them a half felon and whole accomplice , were seen to pace slowly along , their poles under their left arm , their hands mutually thrust into the capacious cuffs of their watchcoats , and each with a frowzy woollen nightcap under his hat . Here and there a staggering toper might be seen on his way home from the tavern brawl or the midnight debauch , advancing , or attempting to advance , as if he wanted to trace Hogarth 's line of beauty . From some quarters the wild and reckless shriek of female profligacy might be heard , the tongue , though loaded with blasphemies , nearly paralyzed by intoxication . Nor can we close here . The fashionable carriage made its appearance filled with beauty shorn of its charms by a more refined dissipation -- beauty , no longer beautiful , returning with pale cheeks , languid eyes , and exhausted frame -- after having breathed a thickened and suffocating atmosphere , calculated to sap the physical health , if not to disturb the pure elements of moral feeling , principle , and delicacy , without which woman becomes only an object of contempt .