SERVILITY IN DRESS. 531 



it has fixed itself in our scheme of costume. This probably has 

 its origin, in the jealousy felt by those under middle height toward 

 others of more commanding stature. The desire to level humanity 

 down to one standard has undoubtedly given rise to many of our 

 fashions. A small man may look no bigger with a tall hat on, 

 but he feels so. A hat which adds four inches to the height of 

 each of two men — one, A, being five feet high, the other, B, being 

 six feet high — reduces the advantage possessed by B. For al- 

 though he will still be twelve inches taller than A, A will no 

 longer be shorter than B by one fifth of his (A's) own height, for 

 64 inches is to 76 as 16 to 19, whereas 60 inches is to 72 only as 15 

 to 18. £999 is much nearer £1,000 than £9 is to £10, though be- 

 tween each pair there is the same difference of 20s. So it looks 

 as if in this matter of hats the small men are the chief culprits. 



The same jealousy of superior physical advantage has brought 

 about many of our ugliest fashions. Sculptors and painters sigh 

 with vain Weltschmer for the small-clothes of eighteenth-century 

 Macaronis and the trunk-hose of the Elizabethans, but so long as 

 some men continue to be born with spindle or crooked shanks 

 and doubtful ankles, so long will well-turned limbs be doomed to 

 the obscurity of trousers. The excuse that trousers are more con- 

 venient and comfortable than breeches and hose is groundless 

 and insincere. 



In like degree, as graceful shapes have ceased to be sought for 

 in designing men's garments, beauty of color has also been re- 

 jected, and a preference shown for black, white, or neutral tints. 

 In no article of clothing is this more rigidly prescribed than in 

 leg covering ; and this is the more remarkable because the word 

 "breeches" is supposed to be derived through the Roman form 

 bracccz, from the Celtic breac, which means variegated, of many 

 colors. This marked preference for somber hues arises, in part, 

 from the same desire to neutralize the effect of physical superior- 

 ity which has spoiled the shape of modern clothes. 



It is part of the same plan which, as is well known to ethnog- 

 raphers, takes the form of tooth-breaking among primitive people 

 in different parts of the world. Just as an influential Batoka of 

 East Africa, or a Penong of Burmah, whose teeth happened to be 

 defective, feels happier when he has persuaded other young men 

 of his tribe to deface their faultless ivory ; so a European grandee, 

 of bilious or dyspeptic habit, would look with prejudice on one 

 whose clear complexion and ruddy cheeks gained brilliancy by 

 contrast with pale-blue satin or carnation silk ; he might at least 

 have the sense to eschew such combinations in his own attire, 

 and, by showing preference for somber tints, tend, in virtue of his 

 position and influence, to set the fashion flowing that way. 



It is difficult to decide whether the gradual suppression of 



