n labour: you have bought
the hands and the time of those workers; they are, by right and justice,
your own hands, your own time. But have you a right to spend your own
time, to work with your own hands, only for your own advantage?--much
more, when, by purchase, you have invested your own person with the
strength of others; and added to your own life, a part of the life of
others? You may, indeed, to a certain extent, use their labour for your
delight: remember, I am making no general assertions against splendour
of dress, or pomp of accessories of life; on the contrary, there are
many reasons for thinking that we do not at present attach enough
importance to beautiful dress, as one of the means of influencing
general taste and character. But I _do_ say, that you must weigh the
value of what you ask these workers to produce for you in its own
distinct balance; that on its own worthiness or desirableness rests the
question of your kindness, and not merely on the fact of your having
employed people in producing it: and I say further, that as long as
there are cold and nakedness in the land around you, so long there can
be no question at all but that splendour of dress is a crime. In due
time, when we have nothing better to set people to work at, it may be
right to let them make lace and cut jewels; but as long as there are any
who have no blankets for their beds, and no rags for their bodies, so
long it is blanket-making and tailoring we must set people to work
at--not lace.

53. And it would be strange, if at any great assembly which, while it
dazzled the young and the thoughtless, beguiled the gentler hearts that
beat beneath the embroidery, with a placid sensation of luxurious
benevolence--as if by all that they wore in waywardness of beauty,
comfort had been first given to the distressed, and aid to the indigent;
it would be strange, I say, if, for a moment, the spirits of Truth and
of Terror, which walk invisibly among the masques of the earth, would
lift the dimness from our erring thoughts, and show us how--inasmuch as
the sums exhausted for that magnificence would have given back the
failing breath to many an unsheltered outcast on moor and street--they
who wear it have literally entered into partnership with Death; and
dressed themselves in his spoils. Yes, if the veil could be lifted not
only from your thoughts, but from your human sight, you would see--the
angels do see--on those gay white dresses of yours,