342 POT-POURRI FROM A SURREY GARDEN 



From a higher point of view, there is nothing so im- 

 portant in dress as the accentuation of what are our 

 physical characteristics. A fat girl in tight tailor-made 

 clothes looks ridiculous. A girl with a tall slight figure, 

 like a boy, looks well tight and neat, ready for the active 

 exercise she is fit for. The womanly woman looks best 

 in soft laces and ruffles and chiffons, be she fat or thin. 



Let middle-aged and old women, except when they 

 are widows, dress in the fashion slightly modified. They 

 are then neither conspicuous nor ridiculous. Is there 

 not wisdom in dressing rather in advance of your years 

 than behind it ? Many a dress lasts three or four years ; 

 so we ought, at turning-points in our Uves, to remember 

 that this makes a difference. It has been said that the 

 lamp of life is not to be measured by the age of the vessel, 

 but by the supply of the Ught. Prettily expressed, I 

 admit, and there is something in it, but it is only a half- 

 truth, and the Baptismal Eegister is the best guide for us 

 personally. Nothing displeases the young so much as to 

 see the generation before them dressed too youthfully, 

 and nothing so accentuates the years that have passed 

 over a woman as the outward display of her having for- 

 gotten them herself. I remember once remarking to a 

 friend how well a tall, shght woman dressed, and how it 

 suited and improved her. 'Yes,' said he, 'a thin, tall 

 woman is a peg for clothes ; but there is all the dif- 

 ference in the world, as the Frenchman said, between 

 une belle taille and un becm corps.' So there are con- 

 solations in all things, and many of the great passions 

 of the world have been for plain women^perhaps because 

 they themselves are so much more grateful for the affec- 

 tion given. Beauty added to other things is a great 

 power ; let no one despise it. It is often easier for a 

 beautiful woman to behave weU than for her plainer 

 sisters. She has the ball at her feet, and she knows it. 



