rom which they suffered served them right. Read
volumes of old memoirs, and you will find that our forefathers, who are
supposed to have been so merry and healthy, suffered from all the ills
which grumblers ascribe to struggling civilization. They did not know
how to extract pleasure from their midsummer days and midsummer nights;
we do, and we are all the better for the grand modern discovery.

Seriously, it is a good thing that we have learned the value of leisure,
and, for my own part, I regard the rushing yearly exodus from London,
Liverpool, Birmingham, with serene satisfaction. It is a pity that so
many English folk persist in leaving their own most lovely land when our
scenery and climate are at their best. In too many cases they wear
themselves with miserable and harassing journeys when they might be
placidly rejoicing in the sweet midsummer days at home. Snarling
aesthetes may say what they choose, but England is not half explored
yet, and anybody who takes the trouble may find out languorous nooks
where life seems always dreamy, and where the tired nerves and brain are
unhurt by a single disturbing influence. There are tiny villages dotted
here and there on the coast where the flaunting tourist never intrudes,
and where the British cad cares not to show his unlovable face. Still,
if people like the stuffy Continental hotel and the unspeakable devices
of the wily Swiss, they must take their choice. I prefer beloved
England; but I wish all joy to those who go far afield.

_June, 1886._

_DANDIES_.

Perhaps there is no individual of all our race who is quite insensible
to the pleasures of what children call "dressing-up." Even the cynic,
the man who defiantly wears old and queer clothes, is merely suffering
from a perversion of that animal instinct which causes the peacock to
swagger in the sun and flaunt the splendour of his train, the instinct
that makes the tiger-moth show the magnificence of his damask wing, and
also makes the lion erect the horrors of his cloudy mane and paw proudly
before his tawny mate. We are all alike in essentials, and Diogenes with
his dirty clouts was only a perverted brother of Prince Florizel with
his peach-coloured coat and snowy ruffles. I intend to handle the
subject of dandies and their nature from a deeply philosophic
starting-point, for, like Carlyle, I recognize the vast significance of
the questions involved in the philosophy of clothes. Let no flippant
individua