ay possibly think it; well, passably
picturesque it may be, but not beautiful, certainly, simply because it is
not founded on right principles, or, indeed, on any principles at all.
Picturesqueness one may get in a variety of ways; ugly things that are
strange, or unfamiliar to us, for instance, may be picturesque, such as a
late sixteenth-century costume, or a Georgian house. Ruins, again, may
be picturesque, but beautiful they never can be, because their lines are
meaningless. Beauty, in fact, is to be got only from the perfection of
principles; and in 'the ideal dress' of Mr. Huyshe there are no ideas or
principles at all, much less the perfection of either. Let us examine
it, and see its faults; they are obvious to any one who desires more than
a 'Fancy-dress ball' basis for costume. To begin with, the hat and boots
are all wrong. Whatever one wears on the extremities, such as the feet
and head, should, for the sake of comfort, be made of a soft material,
and for the sake of freedom should take its shape from the way one
chooses to wear it, and not from any stiff, stereotyped design of hat or
boot maker. In a hat made on right principles one should be able to turn
the brim up or down according as the day is dark or fair, dry or wet; but
the hat brim of Mr. Huyshe's drawing is perfectly stiff, and does not
give much protection to the face, or the possibility of any at all to the
back of the head or the ears, in case of a cold east wind; whereas the
bycocket, a hat made in accordance with the right laws, can be turned
down behind and at the sides, and so give the same warmth as a hood. The
crown, again, of Mr. Huyshe's hat is far too high; a high crown
diminishes the stature of a small person, and in the case of any one who
is tall is a great inconvenience when one is getting in and out of
hansoms and railway carriages, or passing under a street awning: in no
case is it of any value whatsoever, and being useless it is of course
against the principles of dress.

As regards the boots, they are not quite so ugly or so uncomfortable as
the hat; still they are evidently made of stiff leather, as otherwise
they would fall down to the ankle, whereas the boot should be made of
soft leather always, and if worn high at all must be either laced up the
front or carried well over the knee: in the latter case one combines
perfect freedom for walking together with perfect protection against
rain, neither of which advantages a