FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   103   104   105   106   107   108   109   110   111   112   113   114   115   116   117   118   119   120   121   122   123   124   125   126   127  
128   129   130   131   132   133   134   135   136   137   138   139   140   >>  
ed" below the waist, with tight-fitting knickerbockers and stockings. Mr. Brown's muscles and fine proportions are very nearly lost in a coat and trousers, which only make his muscular development look like fat and his fine proportions merely breadth without much shape. Mrs. Smith, who is modelled on the lines of Venus, bares her back at the dictates of some obscure couturiere in Paris, and the result gives a certain aesthetic pleasure. Mrs. Brown, determined also to be in the fashion, valiantly strips herself, and looks like a bladder of not particularly fresh lard! Were she to wear a modified fashion of the mode 1760 she would probably look almost charming. And so we might go on citing examples and improvements until we had tabulated and docketed every human being. For an absolute proof that the present mode of dressing for both men and women is generally wrong, is, that the men and women who look best in it are those who possess bones without flesh, length with just that one suggestion of a curve common to all humanity. And think how much more interesting the world would be were each of us to dress in that style which showed our good points to advantage. For, after all, what is the object of clothes, apart from modesty and warmth--which a blanket and a few safety pins could satisfy--if it be not to create an effect pleasant to the eye. And why, when once we have discovered a style which certainly makes the majority of people look their best, should we wilfully discard it and return to the unimaginative and drab? We complain that the world of to-day, whatever may be said in its favour, cannot possibly be called picturesque. Well let us _make_ it picturesque! And having made it more beautiful--for Heaven's sake let us _KEEP_ it beautiful. Let it be a sign of cowardice--not one of the greatest signs of courage of the age--to fail to put on overalls, if we look our best in them! After all, every reform is in our own hands. But most people seem so entirely helpless to do anything but, metaphorically speaking, flick a fly off their own noses, that they leave reformation to God, and look upon their own unbeautiful effect and the unbeautiful effect of other men as an act of blind destiny. So we, as it were, sigh "Kismet"--in front of garments which a monkey, with any logic or reason in his composition, would not deign to wear. Yes, certainly, if "these old walls could only speak," they would tell us a few hom
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   103   104   105   106   107   108   109   110   111   112   113   114   115   116   117   118   119   120   121   122   123   124   125   126   127  
128   129   130   131   132   133   134   135   136   137   138   139   140   >>  



Top keywords:
effect
 

beautiful

 

unbeautiful

 

fashion

 

picturesque

 
people
 
proportions
 

possibly

 
called
 

discovered


majority

 

satisfy

 
create
 

pleasant

 
wilfully
 

discard

 
complain
 
return
 

unimaginative

 

favour


destiny

 

Kismet

 

garments

 

reformation

 

monkey

 

reason

 

composition

 

courage

 

overalls

 

greatest


cowardice

 
reform
 

metaphorically

 

speaking

 

helpless

 
Heaven
 

humanity

 
result
 

aesthetic

 
couturiere

obscure
 

dictates

 
pleasure
 
determined
 

modified

 

bladder

 
valiantly
 

strips

 
stockings
 

muscles