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and left, as it were, in the rough. The more the styles of coat and 
trowsers are made complex, shifting, finical, the more is this diffi¬ 
culty of independent and meaningless form enhanced; in this case, 
with the added difficulty of a measure of caricature, in the awkward 
approaches, at once near and far off, to the concealed limbs. A 
sailor’s rig, of loose shirt and flowing pants, has permanent and 
picturesque power, simply because it does less, suggests more, and 
leaves itself out of the pale of observation. 
The dress-coat, known to the irreverent as the swallow-tail, 
which the fashionable world assigns to waiters, whether as courtiers, 
they wait on princes, or as servants, on tables, is a surprisingly 
formless nondescript, that, has in it no suggestion of use or honor. 
It may in the first instance have been stolen from his satanic 
majesty, and been designed in his case to keep warm the roots of 
his power. Yet more do the intellectual and emotional powers of 
manhood and womanhood scorn and resent this constant obtrusion 
and rivalry of dress. Society is to such a degree dependent on the 
tricks and artifices of dress, has so much more profound trust in 
silks than in the frankness of free, intelligent life, that a great en¬ 
tertainment is measured and chronicled by the display that is 
elicited, the new, various and rich goods that were exhibited; as if 
the occasion were an industrial fair in brilliant disguise, in which 
certain splendidly gotten-up lay-figures, manikins, representing 
the best achievements of various mercantile houses, were made to 
pass through the evolutions and the initial chit-chat of actual life. 
One is interested in the actions of such an assembly much as he 
would he in the coquetry, rapid motions, and proud display of an 
excited coterie of the birds of Paradise, with the important excep¬ 
tion, that the one class is working at the top of its capacities, and 
the other has humbled its capacities to this paltry exhibition. 
It is of such an assembly and of such society that Farquhar 
makes one of his characters say, “Pride is the life of a woman and 
flattery is our daily bread.” The intellect and soul of man will not 
suffer this rivalry of dress. The higher elements are in inverse 
ratio to the lower. There must be and there will be subordination 
and if we refuse to establish it in favor of the mind and heart, it 
will establish itself in behalf of brilliant colors and rustling robes. 
Few feel the need of, or are able to secure or to use, the devices and 
rival effects of spiritual beauty and sensual display. Mind, when it 
