348 FASHION IN DEFORMITY xx 



upon its model are constantly met with the objection that 

 something extremely inelegant must be the result. It will 

 perhaps be a form to which the eye is not quite accustomed ; 

 but there is no more trite observation than the arbitrary 

 nature of fashion in her dealings with our outward appearance, 

 and we all know how anything which has received her sanc- 

 tion is for the time considered elegant and tasteful, though a 

 few years later it may come to be looked upon as positively 

 ridiculous. That our eye would soon get used to admire a 

 different shape may be easily proved by any one who will for 

 a short time wear shoes constructed upon a more correct 

 principle, when the prevailing pointed shoes, suggestive of 

 cramped and atrophied toes, become positively painful to look 

 upon. 



A glance at a series of pictures of costume at various 

 periods of English history will show how fashion has changed 

 at different times with respect to the coverings of the feet. 

 The fact that the excessively pointed, elongated toes of the 

 time of Eichard II., for instance, were superseded by the 

 broad, round toed, almost elephantine, but most comfortable 

 shoes seen in the portraits of Henry VIII. and his con- 

 temporaries, shows that there is nothing in the former essential 

 to the gratification of the sesthetic instincts of mankind. 

 Each form was doubtless equally admired in the time of its 

 prevalence. 



It is not only leather boots and shoes that are to blame 

 for producing alterations in the form of the feet ; even the 

 stocking, comparatively soft and pliable as it is, when made 

 with pointed toes and similar form for both sides, must take 

 its share. The continual, steady, though gentle pressure, keeps 

 the toes squeezed together, and especially hinders the recovery 

 of its proper form and mobility, when attempts at curing a 

 misshapen foot are being made by wearing shoes of rational 

 construction. Socks adapted to the different form of the two 

 feet, or " rights and lefts," are occasionally to be met with at 

 hosiers, and it would add greatly to comfort if they were more 

 generally adopted. For some cases it is well to have them 

 made with distinct toes like gloves. With such socks and 

 properly constructed shoes, a much distorted foot, even of a 



