d well; so that, as others
dress to live, he lives to dress. The all-importance of clothes has
sprung upon the intellect of the dandy without effort, like an instinct
of genius; he is inspired with cloth--a poet of cloth. Like a generous
creative enthusiast, he fearlessly makes his idea an action--shows
himself in peculiar guise to mankind, walks forth a witness and living
martyr to the eternal worth of clothes. We called him a poet; is not his
body the (stuffed) parchment-skin whereon he writes, with cunning
Huddersfield dyes, a sonnet to his mistress's eyebrow?"

This is very witty and very trenchant in allusion, but I am obliged to
say seriously that Carlyle by no means reached the root of the matter.
The mere tailor's dummy is deplorable, despicable, detestable, but a
real man is none the worse if he gives way to the imperious human desire
for adornment, and some of the men who have made permanent marks on the
world's face have been of the tribe whom our Scotchman satirised. I have
known sensible young men turned into perfectly objectionable slovens by
reading Carlyle; they thought they rendered a tribute to their master's
genius by making themselves look disreputable, and they found allies to
applaud them. One youth of a poetic turn saw that the sage let his hair
fall over his forehead in a tangled mass. Now this young man had very
nice wavy hair, which naturally fell back in a sweep, but he devoted
himself with an industry worthy of a much better cause to the task of
making his hair fall in unkempt style over his brow. When he succeeded,
he looked partly like a Shetland pony, partly like a street-arab; but
his own impression was that his wild and ferocious appearance acted as a
living rebuke to young men of weaker natures. If I had to express a
blunt opinion, I should say he was a dreadful simpleton. Every man likes
to be attractive in some way in the springtime and hey-day of life; when
the blood flushes the veins gaily and the brain is sensitive to joy,
then a man glories in looking well. Why blame him? The young officer
likes to show himself with his troop in gay trappings; the athlete likes
to wear garments that set off his frame to advantage; and it is good
that this desire for distinction exists, else we should have but a grey
and sorry world to live in. When the pulses beat quietly and life moves
on the downward slope, a man relies on more sober attractions, and he
ceases to care for that physical adornment