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♦ KNOWLEDGE ♦ 



[AcG. 10, 1883. 



a (good) " faculty in excess," which no laws, radical or 

 social, could diminish. They voluntarily put themselves 

 out of harmony with their surroundings, and had to endure 

 the hate, abuse, ridicule, and misconstruction which their 

 disobedience to the social laws of the time entailed upon 

 them. 



The fashionably-dressed woman is completely in harmony 

 with her surroundings. She feels this in herself by a 

 delightful sense of self-complacency. Society pets her, 

 and "pays attention" to her, for, on the whole, society 

 likes fashionably-dressed women, however much fashion in 

 the abstract may be abused. But the more the fashion- 

 able woman is in harmony with her surroundings, and the 

 more society is in harmony with her, so much the worse 

 for society and for women. 



When people condemn fashion, they usually mean only 

 the most glaring violations of good taste which they may 

 happen to observe — especially if it is personally incon- 

 venient to them — which fashion from time to time 

 introduces. And this is generally only objected to on 

 its first appearance, for the eye soon gets reconciled to it 

 and ceases to object, and so the harmony between the 

 fashionable woman and her social surroundings is soon 

 re-established. While this even balance is kept up no 

 reform can be expected to arise on either side. 



Something more is required than this occasional protest 

 against, and avoidance of, the passing fashion-folly of the day. 



We must look a little deeper, and see what it is in 

 ourselves and in our ordinary mode of dress which makes 

 us liable to be caught by, and made victims of, the con- 

 tagious disease of Fashion. 



It is this : that our ordinary mode of dress is not con- 

 structed with any reference to the requirements of the 

 body, nor to the beauty of its natural form. It has, there- 

 fore, no firm and lasting basis in Reason. Nothing from 

 which beauty can naturally grow as out of a stem — nothing 

 upon which to base the eternal canons of loveliness — 

 nothing, in short, which can permanently ensure us either 

 fitness or beauty in our dress. Until, therefore, we lay the 

 right foundation, any utility or beauty which those who 

 pander to our morbid desire for change may oflfer us, will 

 only come by chance or accident, and be swept away by the 

 next turn of the tide. 



From my point of view, then, with regard to dress 

 reform, the necessity, scope, and aim of which I have 

 endeavoured logically to put before your readers, my fifth 

 requirement — that we must not depart too conspicuously 

 from the ordinary dress of the time — means that we must 

 depart a little conspicuously. Bear in mind that for this, 

 as for every other reform, two things are necessary — 

 reform of the individual, and reform of the social medium 

 in which the individual lives, and though the first process 

 may be done in secret, every true-hearted and courageous 

 reformer is bound to go on to the second, and is called 

 upon to take a step which must, for the time, put him out 

 of harmony with his surroundings. 



Dress appeals to the eye. It is through the eye that 

 society has been educated in bad taste, and that our social 

 surroundings tend to the increase of women's bad faculties 

 and to the decrease of their good ones. AVe must there- 

 fore begin this second process by an appeal to the eye, in 

 however small a degree, so as gi-adually to modify, alter, 

 and finally change the condition of our social environment, 

 so that it may become favourable to the development of 

 our best faculties, moral, intellectual, and physical. 



For this reason also (that dress appeals to the eye) I 

 have struck here the keynote of beauty rather than of 

 health, though on this latter head as much, or more, re- 

 mains to be said which has not yet been said. 



Those who are alive to the necessity of reform must be 

 content to remain in a state of change or transition until 

 the twofold revolution in mind and act is completed. This 

 is not the " morbid " desire for change, but the healthy 

 desire for perfection. Those who desire progress in re- 

 form must dread any bars placed across the road. Such a 

 bar, I consider, the advice of " Pedestrienne " — that a 

 garment must be of a certain shape and a certain definite 

 width in inches. Any hard-and-fast line of this kind is a 

 bar to progress. Such a one as this induces women to 

 think that in making some little paltry advance they have 

 done all that is needful, and that they may after that go 

 comfortably to sleep for the next generation or two. 



No mental or moral faculty has been called into active 

 exercise ; they have simply accepted a fashion which some 

 individual or some society has succeeded in inducing them 

 to wear, just as they would have received it from the shops 

 or the fashion-books. 



I am so tired of hearing that women naturally shrink 

 from making themselves " '""nspicuous." Everyone " natu- 

 rally shrinks " from dom^ v. hat is disagreeable to them, 

 because every one naturally shrinks from the pain of 

 putting themselves out of harmony with their surroundings. 

 But this is no reason why tbey should not do their duty, 

 and dress reform is the imperative duty of every woman 

 who can think, and who can raise a finger to act. 



But it is not the fact that women naturally shrink from 

 making themselves conspicuous. The whole sex, both from 

 natural and acquired propensities, loves to make itself 

 conspicuous. In comparison with men, we may be called 

 the personally-conspicuous sex. We ought, therefore, to 

 be proud of being conspicuous in the cause of reason, as we 

 have hitherto been in the cause of folly. 



But I would spare my sex as much as possible not 

 because we naturally shrink from making ourselves con- 

 spicuous, but because morbid self-consciousness and personal 

 vanity have been so largely increased in us by our social 

 environment that it gives us much greater pain than it 

 does men to put ourselves out of harmony with it in a 

 matter which touches so sharply on these tender points. 



As far as I am able, I strive to act upon the social 

 medium, so that as little pain as possible may be felt in 

 taking this first painful step. More especially I address 

 myself to men, by arguments which they (some of them) 

 can follow and appreciate. 



If they see flaws in my reasoning let them point them 

 out. If they think them sound, let them help us. 



The Pilsen-Joel and General Electric Light Company 

 (Limited), which possesses in the Pilsen lamp one of the 

 best arc regulators yet invented, have presented a petition 

 for winding-up. 



A Novel Literary Scheme. — In pursuance of a sug- 

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 in brief, an adaptation of the principle of the circulating 

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 it should rather increase than restrict the demand for cur- 

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 larger class than hitherto. All particulars may be obtained 

 of the Parcels Post Periodical Press Exchange, 160, Fleet- 

 street, E.G. 



