446 
Annual Be port of tiie 
their trade-mark, and which stand in no connection of fitness and 
wise adaptation to the persons who wear them. 
There are two features in dress which are always pleasing; sim¬ 
plicity—a strict subordination to the uses of the wearer—and indi¬ 
viduality, a mental flavor caught from the soul itself, a skillful ad¬ 
justment to peculiarities of character or position. Any effort to se¬ 
cure impression by dress in neglect of these qualities is essentially 
vulgar, and can only be pleasing to an uncultivated taste that ac¬ 
cepts the cheap substitute of display for the truly costly qualities of 
an admirable and pervasive character, touching all about it to trans¬ 
form and elevate it. 
Garments in themselves showy and conspicious are best worn, if 
w T orn at all, by those of striking and independent personal endow¬ 
ments. Military dress is usually very observable, often loaded with 
tinsel; and nothing certain is more ridiculous than the strut and 
show of a military pageant when it is gotten up by peaceable, con¬ 
tented citizens, who, perplexed by their exercise and hampered by 
their arms, cannot even awe the rabble that crowd, jostle and jeer 
them. Something of the danger of battle, the prestige of heroic 
exploits, and the stern endurance and authority of real service are 
requisite to lift into fear, and thus respect the bearer of all this blue 
and crimson and gold, and prevent his becoming game even to the 
sharp eyes of the boys and the shallow eyes of the populace. 
A woman of superior beauty, commanding carriage and spark¬ 
ling endowments, may, indeed, be richly dressed, and others be 
scarcely aware of the fact under the much more brilliant impres¬ 
sion of her personal qualities; but so can she be simply dressed and 
call that simplicity to the aid of her speech and bearing. That one 
should owe very much to dress, be able to command position by 
means of it, or in this way confer any real pleasure aside from its 
identification with character, is only possible in superficial society, 
more gratified by the senses than the taste, more occupied with the 
forms and conditions of life than with its intellectual insights and 
spiritual pleasures. We insist, then, that the love of dress in the 
meaning which these words now bear, springs from an essentially 
uncultivated, superficial, vulgar mind, and tends strongly to main¬ 
tain it. 
This relation of endlessly-shifting, complex, and showy garments 
to beauty is also indicated by what we see in nature. As we pass 
