l-shaped legs incased in smalls, their dainty Hessian boots, their
ruffling frills, their canes and dangling seals. No wonder the little
maiden in the big poke-bonnet and the light-blue sash casts down her
eyes and is completely won. Men could win hearts in clothes like that.
But what can you expect from baggy trousers and a monkeyjacket?

Clothes have more effect upon us than we imagine. Our deportment depends
upon our dress. Make a man get into seedy, worn-out rags, and he will
skulk along with his head hanging down, like a man going out to fetch
his own supper beer. But deck out the same article in gorgeous raiment
and fine linen, and he will strut down the main thoroughfare, swinging
his cane and looking at the girls as perky as a bantam cock.

Clothes alter our very nature. A man could not help being fierce and
daring with a plume in his bonnet, a dagger in his belt, and a lot of
puffy white things all down his sleeves. But in an ulster he wants to
get behind a lamp-post and call police.

I am quite ready to admit that you can find sterling merit,
honest worth, deep affection, and all such like virtues of the
roast-beef-and-plum-pudding school as much, and perhaps more, under
broadcloth and tweed as ever existed beneath silk and velvet; but the
spirit of that knightly chivalry that "rode a tilt for lady's love" and
"fought for lady's smiles" needs the clatter of steel and the rustle of
plumes to summon it from its grave between the dusty folds of tapestry
and underneath the musty leaves of moldering chronicles.

The world must be getting old, I think; it dresses so very soberly now.
We have been through the infant period of humanity, when we used to run
about with nothing on but a long, loose robe, and liked to have our feet
bare. And then came the rough, barbaric age, the boyhood of our race. We
didn't care what we wore then, but thought it nice to tattoo ourselves
all over, and we never did our hair. And after that the world grew into
a young man and became foppish. It decked itself in flowing curls and
scarlet doublets, and went courting, and bragging, and bouncing--making
a brave show.

But all those merry, foolish days of youth are gone, and we are very
sober, very solemn--and very stupid, some say--now. The world is a
grave, middle-aged gentleman in this nineteenth century, and would be
shocked to see itself with a bit of finery on. So it dresses in black
coats and trousers, and black hats, and black boot