int we would make as to the effect of clothes
upon psychology. The actor's costume affects the real actor's psychology
as much or more than it does that of his audience. He _is_ the man he
has made himself appear. The writer had the experience of seeing a
well-known opera singer, when a victim to a bad case of the grippe,
leave her hotel voiceless, facing a matinee of _Juliet_. Arrived in her
dressing-room at the opera, she proceeded to change into the costume for
the first act. Under the spell of her role, that prima donna seemed
literally to shed her malady with her ordinary garments, and to take on
health and vitality with her _Juliet_ robes. Even in the Waltz song her
voice did not betray her, and apparently no critic detected that she was
indisposed.

In speaking of periods in furniture, we said that their story was one of
waves of types which repeated themselves, reflecting the ages in which
they prevailed. With clothes we find it is the same thing: the scarlet,
and silver and gold of the early Jacobeans, is followed by the drabs and
greys of the Commonwealth; the marvellous colour of the Church, where
Beauty was enthroned, was stamped out by the iron will of Cromwell who,
in setting up his standard of revolt, wrapped soul and body of the new
Faith in penal shades.

New England was conceived in this spirit and as mind had affected the
colour of the Puritans' clothes, so in turn the drab clothes, prescribed
by their new creed, helped to remove colour from the New England mind
and nature.

PLATE VII

Fifteenth-century costumes on the Holy Women at the Tomb of
our Lord.

The sculpture relief is enamelled terra-cotta in white,
blue, green, yellow and manganese colours. It bears the date
1487.

Note character of head-dresses, arrangement of hair, capes
and gowns which are Early Renaissance. (Metropolitan
Museum.)

[Illustration: _Metropolitan Museum of Art_
_Woman in Art of the Renaissance Sculpture-Relief in Terra-Cotta:
Holy Women_]

But observe how, as prosperity follows privation, the mind expands,
reaching out for what the changed psychology demands. It is the old
story of Rome grown rich and gay in mood and dress. There were of
course, villains in Puritan drab and Grecian white, but the child in
every man takes symbol for fact. So it is that to-day, some shudder with
the belief that Beauty, re-enthroned in all her gorgeous modern hues,
means near di