He says that
"the covering seeks to isolate, to enclose, to shelter, to spread
around, over a certain space, and is a collective unit," whereas
binding implies ligature, and represents a "united plurality,"--for
example, a bundle of sticks, the _fasces_ of the lictors, &c. "Binding
is linear, in dress it is either horizontal or spiral." What can the
united plurality be that justifies the binding often bestowed on the
figure in fashionable costumes? more fitted for binding together the
bones of the dead, than for permitting the agility of the muscles of
the living. Semper continues,--"Anything that goes against this
important axiom is wrong."[477]

I think we must all agree that the objects of dress are decency,
isolation, warmth, grace, and beauty. As long as fashion takes the
place of taste, and extravagant _chic_ supersedes grace and beauty, we
must not hope that fine designs to individualize dress will be called
for. The French machine-made embroideries are so beautiful, and
comparatively cheap, that we cannot compete with them. The best
artists design them, and the only fault to be found is this, that as
they are made by thousands of yards, and can only be varied by
interchange of colours, they become common the day they are produced.
It has been said that "fashion is made for a class, but taste for
mankind."[478] Fashion is the enemy of taste, though she makes use of
her services. The gown, of which the fashion is in every sense
imported from France, will probably never again be the vehicle for
home embroideries. But there are other articles of personal adornment
which will always be available for the fancies of decorative
taste--the fan, the purse or satchel, the apron, the fichu, the point
of the shoe, and the muff--all these are objects on which thought and
ingenuity may well be expended, and which will remain as records of
personal feeling when the workers and givers of such graceful
mementoes are far away. Carriage-rugs and foot-muffs, and embroidered
letter-cases, and book-covers, must be placed somewhere between
furniture and personal ornament. In all these the "_imprevu_," or
"unexpected," is what is valuable, including all that is original and
quaint.

Embroidery will, however, probably continue occasionally to be
employed in the adornment of dress--and will leave of each phase and
period of art some fine examples on which the archaeologist of the
future may pause and reason.

There are in most old ho