the little cloud no larger than a man's hand,
so from the primary fig-leaf or first element of dress, how great things
have arisen! In respect of amplification, dress may be said to have
attained its maximum when men wore ruffs which nearly concealed their
heads, and shoes a quarter of a yard longer than their feet; but
"fashion" has its day, and now dress threatens to dwindle into something
not far from its original or fig-leaf dimensions.

Another perfectly legitimate object of dress is attractiveness, so that
by its aid our persons may be set off to the best advantage; dress
should also be individual and symbolic, so as to indicate clearly the
position and character which we desire to obtain and hold. It is not of
men's attire that we have now to speak; that has been settled for them
by the tailors' strike, which practically ordained that he that was
shabby should be shabby, or even shabbier still, and he that had allowed
himself to be thrust into the straitened trousers and scanty coatee of
last year should continue to exhibit his proportions long after the
grotesqueness of his figure had been recognised even by himself.

But it is of the dress of our women that we are compelled to testify,
and it can hardly be denied that at the present moment it offends
grievously in three particulars. It is inadequate for decency; it lacks
that truthfulness which is, and should be, the base of all that is
attractive and beautiful; and in its symbolism it is in the highest
degree objectionable, for it not only aims at what is unreal and false,
but it simulates that which is positively hateful and meretricious, so
that it is difficult now for even a practised eye to distinguish the
high-born maiden or matron of Belgravia from the Anonymas who haunt the
drive and fill our streets.

This indictment is, it may be said, a severe one; but if we examine, so
far as male critics may venture to do, the costume of a fashionable
woman of the day, it can hardly be said to be unjust. The apparent
object of modern female dress is to assimilate its wearers as nearly as
possible in appearance to women of a certain class--the class to which
it was formerly hardly practicable to allude, and yet be intelligible to
young ladies; but all that is changed, and the habits and customs of the
women of the _demi-monde_ are now studied as if they were indeed
curious, but exceptionally admirable also, and thus a study unseemly and
unprofitable has begotten