resemble internally, and
whose mark therefore they ought not to bear externally. But there you
are, beguiling me into a sermon which you will only hate me in your
hearts for preaching. Go along, children! You certainly look as well
as anybody can in that style of getting up; so go to your party, and
to-morrow night, when you are tired and sleepy, if you'll come with
your crochet, and sit in my study, I will read you Christopher
Crowfield's dissertation on dress."

"That will be amusing, to say the least," said Humming-Bird; "and, be
sure, we will all be here. And mind, you have to show good reasons for
disliking the present fashion."

So the next evening there was a worsted party in my study, sitting in
the midst of which I read as follows:--

WHAT ARE THE SOURCES OF BEAUTY IN DRESS

"The first one is _appropriateness_. Colors and forms and modes, in
themselves graceful or beautiful, can become ungraceful and
ridiculous simply through inappropriateness. The most lovely bonnet
that the most approved modiste can invent, if worn on the head of a
coarse-faced Irishwoman bearing a market-basket on her arm, excites
no emotion but that of the ludicrous. The most elegant and brilliant
evening dress, if worn in the daytime in a railroad car, strikes every
one with a sense of absurdity; whereas both these objects in
appropriate associations would excite only the idea of beauty. So a
mode of dress obviously intended for driving strikes us as _outre_
in a parlor; and a parlor dress would no less shock our eyes on
horseback. In short, the course of this principle through all
varieties of form can easily be perceived. Besides appropriateness
to time, place, and circumstances, there is appropriateness to age,
position, and character. This is the foundation of all our ideas of
professional propriety in costume. One would not like to see a
clergyman in his external air and appointments resembling a
gentleman of the turf; one would not wish a refined and modest scholar
to wear the outward air of a fast fellow, or an aged and venerable
statesman to appear with all the peculiarities of a young dandy.
The flowers, feathers, and furbelows which a light-hearted young
girl of seventeen embellishes by the airy grace with which she
wears them, are simply ridiculous when transferred to the toilet of
her serious, well-meaning mamma, who bears them about with an
anxious face, merely because a loquacious milliner has assured her,
with many p