d poetical nature that is given by the love of flowers and of natural
objects.

"In the third place, there is nothing in itself wrong, or unworthy a
rational being, in a certain degree of attention to the fashion of
society in our costume. It is not wrong to be annoyed at unnecessary
departures from the commonly received practices of good society in the
matter of the arrangement of our toilet; and it would indicate rather an
unamiable want of sympathy with our fellow-beings, if we were not
willing, for the most part, to follow what they indicate to be agreeable
in the disposition of our outward affairs."

"Well, I must say, Mr. Crowfield, you are allowing us all a very
generous margin," said Humming-Bird.

"But, now," said I, "I am coming to the restrictions. When is love of
dress excessive and wrong? To this I answer by stating my faith in one
of old Plato's ideas, in which he speaks of beauty and its uses. He says
there were two impersonations of beauty worshipped under the name of
Venus in the ancient times,--the one celestial, born of the highest
gods, the other earthly. To the earthly Venus the sacrifices were such
as were more trivial; to the celestial, such as were more holy. 'The
worship of the earthly Venus,' he says, 'sends us oftentimes on unworthy
and trivial errands, but the worship of the celestial to high and
honorable friendships, to noble aspirations and heroic actions.'

"Now it seems to me that, if we bear in mind this truth in regard to
beauty, we shall have a test with which to try ourselves in the matter
of physical adornment. We are always excessive when we sacrifice the
higher beauty to attain the lower one. A woman who will sacrifice
domestic affection, conscience, self-respect, honor, to love of dress,
we all agree, loves dress too much. She loses the true and higher beauty
of womanhood for the lower beauty of gems and flowers and colors. A girl
who sacrifices to dress all her time, all her strength, all her money,
to the neglect of the cultivation of her mind and heart, and to the
neglect of the claims of others on her helpfulness, is sacrificing the
higher to the lower beauty. Her fault is not the love of beauty, but
loving the wrong and inferior kind.

"It is remarkable that the directions of Holy Writ, in regard to the
female dress, should distinctly take note of this difference between the
higher and the lower beauty which we find in the works of Plato. The
Apostle gives no rule, no s