ufs" were worn to enlarge the dress on the hips at the side. The
"Grecian bend," stooping forward, was an attitude both in walking and
standing. Then followed the bustle. Later, the contour was closely
fitted by the dress. No one thought that the human figure would be
improved if changed as the dress made it appear to be. No fashion was
adopted because it would have an indecent effect. The point for our
purpose is that women wore dresses of the appointed shape because
everybody did so, and for no other reason, being unconscious of the
effect.

Erasmus, in his colloquy on the Franciscans, makes one of the characters
say: "I think that the whole matter of dress depends upon custom and the
opinions which are current." He refers to some unnamed place where
adulterers, after conviction, are never allowed to uncover the private
parts, and says, "Custom has made it, for them, the greatest of all
punishments." "The fact is that nothing is so ridiculous that usage may
not make it pass."

Fashion has controlled the mode of dressing the hair and deforming the
body. It has determined what animals, or what special race of an animal
species, should be petted. It controls music and literature, so that a
composer, poet, or novelist is the rage or is forgotten. In mediaeval
literature the modes of allegory were highly esteemed and very commonly
used. The writers described war and battles over and over again, and
paid little attention to nature. In fact, natural background, geography,
and meteorology were made as conventional as stage scenery, and were
treated as of no interest and little importance. Modern taste for
reality and for the natural details throws this mediaeval characteristic
by contrast into strong relief.

+191. Miscellaneous fashions.+ Fashion rules in architecture. In the
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries in England, English Renaissance and
Gothic were regarded as barbaric, and palladian was admired. In France
the preference was for rococo and Mansard forms. At the present time the
English Renaissance and Gothic are in favor again, and palladian is
regarded with disfavor. Painting and sculpture undergo variations of
fashion as to standards and methods. The same is true of literature.
Poetry and novels follow phases of fashion. A successful novel makes
imitations and sets a fashion for a time. Types of heroes and ideals of
character come and go by fashion. The type of the man-as-he-should-be
varies by fashion, and t