h in other respects
he was a "perfectly well-bred person." Steele naturally regarded
this acquaintance with deep suspicion, which was justified when,
twenty-two years afterwards, the innovator married his cook-maid.
"Others were amazed at this," writes the essayist, "but I must
confess that I was not. I had always known that his deviation from
the costume of a gentleman indicated an ill-balanced mind."

Now the adoption of a rigorous and monotonous utilitarianism in
masculine attire has had two unlovely results. In the first place,
men, since they ceased to covet beautiful clothes for themselves,
have wasted much valuable time in counselling and censuring women;
and, in the second place, there has come, with the loss of their fine
trappings, a corresponding loss of illusions on the part of the women
who look at them. Black broadcloth and derby hats are calculated to
destroy the most robust illusions in Christendom; and men--from
motives hard to fathom--have refused to retain in their wardrobes
a single article which can amend an imperfect ideal. This does not
imply that women fail to value friends in black broadcloth, nor that
they refuse their affections to lovers and husbands in derby hats.
Nature is not to be balked by such impediments. But as long as men
wore costumes which interpreted their strength, enhanced their
persuasiveness, and concealed their shortcomings, women accepted
their dominance without demur. They made no idle claim to equality
with creatures, not only bigger and stronger, not only more capable
and more resolute, not only wiser and more experienced, but more
noble and distinguished in appearance than they were themselves.
What if the assertive attitude of the modern woman, her easy
arrogance, and the confidence she places in her own untried powers,
may be accounted for by the dispiriting clothes which men have
determined to wear, and the wearing of which may have cost them no
small portion of their authority?

The whole attitude of women in this regard is fraught with
significance. Men have rashly discarded those details of costume
which enhanced their comeliness and charm (we have but to look at
Van Dyck's portraits to see how much rare distinction is traceable
to subdued elegance of dress); but women have never through the long
centuries laid aside the pleasant duty of self-adornment. They dare
not if they would,--too much is at stake; and they experience the
just delight which comes from coop