y old and
beautifully-faded velvets and sun-licked silks and rain-improved
cloths.

Among all this crowd would pass, in a plain tunic and short shoes,
Henry, the ascetic King.

THE WOMEN

[Illustration: {Six types of head-dress for women}]

One is almost disappointed to find nothing upon the curious subject of
horns in 'Sartor Resartus.' Such a flaunting, Jovian spirit, and
poetry of abuse as might have been expected from the illustrious and
iconoclastic author would have suited me, at this present date, most
admirably.

I feel the need of a few thundering German words, or a brass band at
the end of my pen, or purple ink in my inkwell, or some fantastic and
wholly arresting piece of sensationalism by which to convey to you
that you have now stepped into the same world as the Duchess out of
'Alice in Wonderland.'

[Illustration: {A head-dress for a woman}]

Look out of your window and see upon the flower-enamelled turf a
hundred bundles of vanity taking the air. The heads of these ladies
are carried very erect, as are all heads bearing weights. The waists
of these ladies are apparently under their bosoms; their feet seem to
be an ell long. An assembly hour is, after the manner of Lydgate's
poem, a dream of delicious faces surmounted by minarets, towers,
horns, excrescences of every shape--enormous, fat, heart-shaped
erections, covered with rich, falling drapery, or snow-white linen, or
gold tissue; gold-wire boxes sewn with pearls and blazing with
colours; round, flat-topped caps, from under which girls' hair escapes
in a river of colour; crown shapes, circular shapes, mitre shapes,
turbans, and shovel-shaped linen erections, wired into place.

Oh, my lady, my lady! how did you ever hear the soft speeches of
gallantry? How did the gentle whispers of love ever penetrate those
bosses of millinery?

[Illustration: {Two types of head-dress for women}]

And the moralists, among whom Heaven forbid that I should be found,
painted lurid pictures for you of hell and purgatory, in which such
head-dresses turned into instruments of torture; you lifted your
long-fingered, medieval hand and shook the finger with the toad-stone
upon it, as if to dispel the poison of their words.

I think it is beyond me to describe in understandable terms the proper
contortions of your towered heads, for I have little use for archaic
words, for crespine, henk, and jacque, for herygouds with honginde
sleeves, for all the blank c