he mere pleasure
of possession, for the meaningless--and most unreasonable--joy of
expenditure. And when Queen Elizabeth, who considered extravagance
in dress to be a royal prerogative, attempted to coerce the ladies
of her court into simplicity, the Countess of Shrewsbury comments
with ill-concealed irony on the result of such reasonable endeavours.
"How often hath her majestie, with the grave advice of her honourable
Councell, sette down the limits of apparell of every degree; and how
soon again hath the pride of our harts overflown the chanell."

There are two classes of critics who still waste their vital forces
in a futile attempt to reform feminine dress. The first class cherish
artistic sensibilities which are grievously wounded by the caprices
of fashion. They anathematize a civilization which tolerates
ear-rings, or feathered hats, or artificial flowers. They appear to
suffer vicarious torments from high-heeled shoes, spotted veils, and
stays. They have occasional doubts as to the moral influence of
ball-dresses. An unusually sanguine writer of this order has assured
us, in the pages of the "Contemporary Review," that when women once
assume their civic responsibilities, they will dress as austerely
as men. The first fruits of the suffrage will be seen in sober and
virtue-compelling gowns at the opera.

The second class of critics is made up of economists, who believe
that too much of the world's earnings is spent upon clothes, and that
this universal spirit of extravagance retards marriage, and blocks
the progress of the race. It is in an ignoble effort to pacify these
last censors that women writers undertake to tell their women readers,
in the pages of women's periodicals, how to dress on sums of
incredible insufficiency. Such misleading guides would be harmless,
and even in their way amusing, if nobody believed them; but unhappily
somebody always does believe them, and that somebody is too often
a married man. There is no measure to the credulity of the average
semi-educated man when confronted by a printed page (print carries
such authority in his eyes), and with rows of figures, all showing
conclusively that two and two make three, and that with economy and
good management they can be reduced to one and a half. He has never
mastered, and apparently never will master, the exact shade of
difference between a statement and a fact.

Women are, under most circumstances, even more readily deceived; but,
in t