e the interpreters of intentions. That these intentions be so
expressed, it is first necessary to have them, and he who possesses them
makes them evident through the simplest means. One need not be rich to
give grace and charm to his habit and his habitation: it suffices to
have good taste and good-will. We come here to a point very important to
everybody, but perhaps of more interest to women than to men.

Those who would have women conceal themselves in coarse garments of the
shapeless uniformity of bags, violate nature in her very heart, and
misunderstand completely the spirit of things. If dress were only a
precaution to shelter us from cold or rain, a piece of sacking or the
skin of a beast would answer. But it is vastly more than this. Man puts
himself entire into all that he does; he transforms into types the
things that serve him. The dress is not simply a covering, it is a
symbol. I call to witness the rich flowering of national and provincial
costumes, and those worn by our early corporations. A woman's toilette,
too, has something to say to us. The more meaning there is in it, the
greater its worth. To be truly beautiful, it must tell us of beautiful
things, things personal and veritable. Spend all the money you possess
upon it, if its form is determined by chance or custom, if it has no
relation to her who wears it, it is only toggery, a domino.
Ultra-fashionable dress, which completely masks feminine personality
under designs of pure convention, despoils it of its principal
attraction. From this abuse it comes about that many things which women
admire do as much wrong to their beauty as to the purses of their
husbands and fathers. What would you say of a young girl who expressed
her thoughts in terms very choice, indeed, but taken word for word from
a phrase-book? What charm could you find in this borrowed language? The
effect of toilettes well-designed in themselves but seen again and
again on all women indiscriminately, is precisely the same.

I can not resist citing here a passage from Camille Lemonnier, that
harmonizes with my idea.

"Nature has given to the fingers of woman a charming art, which she
knows by instinct, and which is peculiarly her own--as silk to the worm,
and lace-work to the swift and subtle spider. She is the poet, the
interpreter of her own grace and ingenuousness, the spinner of the
mystery in which her wish to please arrays itself. All the talent she
expends in her effort to equa