"I am not certain that I can enlighten you fully on the subject; but
think that I may, perhaps in a degree, if you will allow my views
their proper weight in your mind."

"I will try to do so; but shall not promise to be convinced."

"No matter. Convinced or not convinced you will still be carried
along by the current. As to the primary cause of the change in
fashion it strikes me that it is one of the visible effects of that
process of change ever going on in the human mind. The fashion of
dress that prevails may not be the true exponent of the internal and
invisible states, because they must necessarily be modified in
various ways by the interests and false tastes of such individuals
as promulgate them. Still, this does not affect the primary cause."

"Granting your position to be true, Mary, which I am not fully
prepared to admit or deny--why should we blindly follow these
fashions?"

"We need not _blindly_. For my part, I am sure that I do not blindly
follow them."

"You do when you adopt a fashion without thinking it becoming."

"That I never do."

"But, surely, you do not pretend to say that all fashions are
becoming?"

"All that prevail to any extent, appear so, during the time of their
prevalence, unless they involve an improper exposure of the person,
or are injurious to health."

"That is singular."

"But is it not true."

"Perhaps it is. But how do you account for it?"

"On the principle that there are both external and internal causes
at work, modifying the mind's perceptions of the appropriate and
beautiful."

"Mostly external, I should think, such as a desire to be in the
fashion, etc."

"That feeling has its influence no doubt, and operates very
strongly."

"But is it a right feeling?"

"It is right or wrong, according to the end in view. If fashion be
followed from no higher view than a selfish love of being admired,
then the feeling is wrong."

"Can we follow fashion with any other end?"

"Answer the question yourself. You follow the fashions."

"I think but little about them, Mary."

"And yet you dress very much like people who do."

"That may be so. The reason is, I do not wish to be singular."

"Why?"

"For this reason. A man who affects any singularity of dress or
manners, loses his true influence in society. People begin to think
that there must be within, a mind not truly balanced and therefore
do not suffer his opinions, no matter how sound, to have their true
w