nd there should be a general style of idea to which
everything should be subjected.

"We may illustrate the effect of this principle in a very familiar
case. It is generally conceded that the majority of women look better
in mourning than they do in their ordinary apparel; a comparatively
plain person looks almost handsome in simple black. Now why is this?
Simply because mourning requires a severe uniformity of color and
idea, and forbids the display of that variety of colors and objects
which go to make up the ordinary female costume, and which very few
women have such skill in using as to produce really beautiful
effects.

"Very similar results have been attained by the Quaker costume, which,
in spite of the quaint severity of the forms to which it adhered, has
always had a remarkable degree of becomingness, because of its
restriction to a few simple colors and to the absence of distracting
ornament.

"But the same effect which is produced in mourning or the Quaker
costume may be preserved in a style of dress admitting color and
ornamentation. A dress may have the richest fullness of color,
and still the tints may be so chastened and subdued as to produce
the impression of a severe simplicity. Suppose, for example, a
golden-haired blonde chooses for the ground-tone of her toilet a
deep shade of purple, such as affords a good background for the
hair and complexion. The larger draperies of the costume being
of this color, the bonnet may be of a lighter shade of the same,
ornamented with lilac hyacinths, shading insensibly towards
rose-color. The effect of such a costume is simple, even though
there be much ornament, because it is ornament artistically
disposed towards a general result.

"A dark shade of green being chosen as the ground-tone of a dress, the
whole costume may, in like manner, be worked up through lighter and
brighter shades of green, in which rose-colored flowers may appear
with the same impression of simple appropriateness that is made by the
pink blossom over the green leaves of a rose. There have been times in
France when the study of color produced artistic effects in costume
worthy of attention, and resulted in styles of dress of real beauty.
But the present corrupted state of morals there has introduced a
corrupt taste in dress; and it is worthy of thought that the decline
of moral purity in society is often marked by the deterioration of the
sense of artistic beauty. Corrupt and dissipated so