s, or limp, or cover their
necks, in imitation of their king; and the people who ape the courtiers;
are alike acting under a kind of government connate with that of
Manners, and, like it too, primarily beneficial. For notwithstanding the
numberless absurdities into which this copyism has led the people, from
nose-rings to ear-rings, from painted faces to beauty-spots, from shaven
heads to powdered wigs, from filed teeth and stained nails to
bell-girdles, peaked shoes, and breeches stuffed with bran,--it must yet
be concluded, that as the strong men, the successful men, the men of
will, intelligence, and originality, who have got to the top, are, on
the average, more likely to show judgment in their habits and tastes
than the mass, the imitation of such is advantageous.

By and by, however, Fashion, corrupting like these other forms of rule,
almost wholly ceases to be an imitation of the best, and becomes an
imitation of quite other than the best. As those who take orders are not
those having a special fitness for the priestly office, but those who
see their way to a living by it; as legislators and public functionaries
do not become such by virtue of their political insight and power to
rule, but by virtue of birth, acreage, and class influence; so, the
self-elected clique who set the fashion, gain this prerogative, not by
their force of nature, their intellect, their higher worth or better
taste, but gain it solely by their unchecked assumption. Among the
initiated are to be found neither the noblest in rank, the chief in
power, the best cultured, the most refined, nor those of greatest
genius, wit, or beauty; and their reunions, so far from being superior
to others, are noted for their inanity. Yet, by the example of these
sham great, and not by that of the truly great, does society at large
now regulate its goings and comings, its hours, its dress, its small
usages. As a natural consequence, these have generally little or none of
that suitableness which the theory of fashion implies they should have.
But instead of a continual progress towards greater elegance and
convenience, which might be expected to occur did people copy the ways
of the really best, or follow their own ideas of propriety, we have a
reign of mere whim, of unreason, of change for the sake of change, of
wanton oscillations from either extreme to the other--a reign of usages
without meaning, times without fitness, dress without taste. And thus
life _