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