COKRUrTION OF THE CEREMONIAL RULE. 91 



and breeches stuffed with bran, it must yet be concluded, 

 that as the strong men, the successful men, the men of will, 

 intelligence, and originality, who have got to the top, are, 

 on the average, more likely to show judgment in their hab 

 its and tastes than the mass, the imitation of such is advan 

 tageous. 



By and by, however, Fashion, corrupting like these 

 other forms of rule, almost wholly ceases to be an imitation 

 of the best, and becomes an imitation of quite other than 

 the best. As those who take orders are not those having 

 a special fitness for the priestly office, but those who see 

 their way to a living by it ; as legislators and public func 

 tionaries do not become such by virtue of their political 

 insight and power to rule, but by virtue of birth, acreage, 

 and class influence ; so, the self-elected clique who set the 

 fashion, gain this prerogative, not by their force of nature, 

 their intellect, their higher worth or better taste, but gain 

 it solely by their unchecked assumption. Among the ini 

 tiated are to be found neither the noblest in rank, the 

 chief in power, the best cultured, the most refined, nor 

 those of greatest genius, wit, or beauty ; and their re 

 unions, so far from being superior to others, are noted 

 for their inanity. Yet, by the example of these sham 

 great, and not by that of the truly great, does society at 

 large now regulate its goings and comings, its hours, its 

 dress, its small usages. As a natural consequence, these 

 have generally little or none of that suitableness which the 

 theory of fashion implies they should have. But instead 

 of a continual progress towards greater elegance and con 

 venience, which might be expected to occur did people 

 copy the ways of the really best, or follow their own ideas 

 if propriety, we have a reign of mere whim, of unreason, 

 of change for the sake of change, of wanton oscillations 

 from either extreme to the other a reign of usages with- 



o o 



out meaning, times without fitness, dress without taste 



