Wisconsin State Agricultural Society. 
437 
diplomacy, which at once betrays and conceals each new adjustment 
of social forces, and advertises us of the character and strength of 
those with whom we have to deal. Dress is often far more the 
language of the tastes and passions, than language itself, and this 
dumb show of colors may reveal the inner life more clearly than 
the chit-chat which accompanies it, and makes way for it. Indeed, 
the reason why speech is put to so light service in fashionable society, 
is, because the whole substance of the heart’s message has gone in¬ 
to the brilliant dress, has found another and more adequate utter¬ 
ance. 
Dress, issuing thus out of the secret and hidden character of a 
life it most strikingly embodies and presents, offered in turn to eyes 
alert and sensibilities alive with sympathetic comprehension, moulds 
the inner nature and outward action of those who most concern 
themselves with it to a degree not at once comprehended by the 
phlegmatic, forgetful male-mind, awakened for a moment to its ef¬ 
fects at remote intervals; and then only to transient observation, as 
of the colors of the passing landscape. 
We, then, need not be debarred from the consideration of dress 
by any want of importance in the subject. We have more fear of 
the plea that dress, though not trivial in itself, is yet made up of 
trivialities, is so the product of sportive impulses, capricious feelings, 
and the vagaries of fashion, as to be, from the nature of the case, 
be.yond the realm of reason, something which it is equally useless 
to attack or defend with sober, serious considerations. Certainly, 
no absurdities can plead more antiquity than those of dress, or 
have traveled through a more unending circuit. If folly can hold 
any kingdom by possession, surely this is that kingdom; and we 
feel that in bringing nothing better than reasons to the discussion 
of dress, we are at once ruled out of all, or almost all, the conclaves 
that now sit in deliberation on this theme. It is only to a few 
stupid male-minds, or to minds so allied to masculinity that they have 
never been touched by the electric forces that disport themselves in 
the brilliant, auroral fields of fashion, that we can hope to find ac¬ 
cess. This, however, is but another phase of the common misfor¬ 
tune, that we all speak and write for ourselves, and need not deter 
us from uttering one honest word so long as we believe in one hon¬ 
est man, or one so far honest as to be like ourselves. 
The first and chief utility of dress is shelter, and in reference to 
