WELL-KNOWN author makes one of his characters assert that "in these days people are practically born in their clothes." Such an original view of the wellworn subject of clothes, set down in crude black and white, is somewhat startling upon a first reading, and provides much food for thought.

It is most trying to have one's settled convictions on any given subject, which have been carefully docketed and pigeon-holed, rootled out and thrown into confusion because some recognized authority, trading upon his reputation, tosses the ball of a perplexing riddle into the midst of a placid and well-conducted community, to be solved by them at their leisure. We feel as if the ground were slipping from under our feet; we question in bewildered fashion "what next," and expect topsy-turvydom to reign in the midst of our pet illusions. We prepare to contemplate the shattered dreams of our common sense, and see chaos reign in the place of our small proprieties.

tain sense of relief and comfort will accrue to those whom the foregoing remarks may have plunged into an uncertainty with regard to their faith in the seemliness of clothes.

There is more truth than fiction, more of fact than theory, at the bottom of this novel suggestion, and it deserves the weighty consideration of all who can justly claim to be thoughtful, and are in the habit of sifting the virtues of doubtful issues.

To suggest that clothes are improper would be the work of a bold spirit, for without a doubt they are necessary and pleasing adjuncts to the needs of our uneasy existense, but they dominate and colour our outlook upon men and things more completely than can be realized from a superficial point of view.

If we take a careful review of life from the early dimpled roundness of wondering babyhood, to the knowing cynicism of old age, we will form some conception of the fateful power of clothes. And if we look back further, across the mist of years, into the depths of the centuries, we will stand aghast at the accumulated strength of resource which has been spent upon our frills.

The strange complexity of voluminous garments-or the scantiness of the

That we are content to live in our clothes, smoothing our frills with complacence, is one thing; but to be told we are born in our clothes disturbs the easy flow of our simple thoughts in a manner which is decidedly upsetting, and in some indefinable way we seem to hover dangerously near the precincts of indecorum. On reflection, however, the momentary feeling of perturbation. passes, and instead of being shocked, our refined sensibilities will be conscious of a distinct element of propriety pervading the question, and a cer

same; the grace and colour of clinging æsthetic draperies, or the astonishing configuration of the crinoline, have flounted their tantalizing inconsistencies in the face of helpless humanity from age to age. The outrage of all proportion; the height of petulant heels; the tilt of a modish coiffure; the thousand and one seductions of diaphanous laces, continue to bewilder

the eyes of poor humans, and they grope helplessly in the midst of a kaleidoscopic view of dissolving chiffons, grasping vainly for some tangible form which will remain unchanging in the midst of change. Finally, the longsuffering observer of human nature in its outward and visible aspect, comes to the conclusion it is more satisfactory to study the human form divine by the broad simplicity of the classics, than trust his powers to conceive an ideal of beauty from the iridescent splendours of our modern habit.

In their power of misrepresentation, clothes are unquestionably guilty of impropriety in its more subtle sense; that is, an impropriety which assumes to the false an air of reality, and covers truth with a garment of prevarication. They conceal the truth without denying it, and by connivance become participants in subterfuges and pitfalls which beset the thorny path of the unwary, who move blindly onward, seeing they know not what, and pondering upon the thought of what they do not see.

Clothes envelope, influence and restrain our frail bodies with a quiet strength which shall still endure when the vigorous onslaughts of the dress reform societies shall have ceased their struggling, and mould the character in an unyielding cast of buckram and whalebone. They constitute the first

elements of civilized and social life. They set in motion the maelstrom of effort and emulation, which, spreading in ever-widening circles, draws into its vortex all the machinery for the growth of the world-all of energy, strength, ambition and imagination to assist in creating this gorgeous pageant of clothes.

With the success or failure of personal adornment, our fitful charms glow and wane like the skin of a chameleon; our moods vary from gay to grave, and grave to bitter; our beauties appear or vanish, until we realize that frills are responsible to a larger extent than seems possible for the trend of our mental and physical training.

Despite the advocates of heredity, character is also the result of environment and circumstance; and what environment envelopes men and women more closely than their clothes? Brave with all the bravery of her coat of many colours, and the swish of her well-hung flounces, a woman steps out into the whirl of life with a brilliant dash of radiant smiles and faultless attire. With a courage born of her successful disguise, all that may be of sensitiveness in her nature; all that may be of furtive sadness hanging like a misty veil over the lingering of some close hidden sorrow, is thrust back into the secret cubby holes of her soul-a heartless, dazzling exterior faces the world, and passes on its way triumphant. Protected by an impenetrable shield, she is proof against the most insidious attacks of a skilled tactician in the artifices of that bloodless warfare which is waged without ceasing in social communion.

Behind the kindly shelter of beneficent garments

is

,,),

concealed the wisdom of fools and the follies of the wise, and a man of resource plays upon the credulity of his social antagonists with all the legerdemain of a magician. With exquisite discrimination he assumes, according to his need, a variety of guises, and seeks to penetrate the armour of his opponents with the agility and resistless precision of a clever fencer.

The man who seeks to be a large toad in his small puddle hastens to make himself familiar with the "technique" of his wardrobe within the limitations which the Great Mogul of sartorial art has decreed he shall move. He is too wise to underestimate the power of frills, and turns them to the attaining of his own ends with as much forethought as Mademoiselle Aigrette

expends upon the coup de main of her next ball-room campagne. The nice turn of curve in waistcoats, the proper angle of hat brims, the correct caper in golfing gear are none of them too trifling for the serious attention of the wise man who wishes to make a noise in the world. And woe to the man of ambition who neglects the smallest trifle in this age, when trifles appear as greatness on the near horizon of our short-sighted vision.

The sombre, ungraceful raiment which man (referring specifically to the male gender) has rendered himself subservient to, is as powerful in its pre

sent evolution from the picturesque as in the days of white satin tights and doublets of scarlet and gold. From within the stultifying environments of lines and colours, painful in their ugliness, the lord of creation beams forth complacently with inward conviction of the impression he is making, wholly oblivious to the fact that he is but one in an innumerable host monotonous as the proverbial flock of sheep. Every man doubtless takes comfort to his soul that his own especial idiosyncrasies are safely ensconced behind the

shelter of a dress as like as two peas to his neighbour. The politician and the pothat orator of the public square; the lawyer and the vendor of edibles out for his Sunday airing; the spoiled darling of my lady's boudoir and the butler who ushers him in, all vie with each other in getting the latest intelligence as to shade, shape and set of necktie ; the exact height of excruciatingly uncomfortable collars, and ponder the ways and means of attaining the dignity of that crowning monstrosity, a modern silk hat.

In the midst of our confused attempts to recognize quickly the distinctions which lie hidden in the folds of these characterless frills, we humbly apologize to the butler and pass a distinguished litterateur with haughty air and a request for light refreshments. Nevertheless, across the surface of this dreary waste of uniformity the mark of indi

H.B

viduality and subtle detail of mannerism is clearly though delicately drawn. The sign is set upon their foreheads. A cad may take indefinite pains to be immaculate in the fashion of his turnout, he may conform in all things strictly to the most exigent requirements of his well-posted tailor, yet this same perfection of attire will be but the means of his own undoing and he will still be labeled before the world "cad," pure and simple.

A solemn and absorbing interest is this interest of clothes, weighted with grave responsibility, than which there is no topic more universally fascinating. Nothing appeals more unerringly to "all sorts and conditions of men" than the witching coquetry of frills. The unnamed of the factories, with their bits of gaudy ribbon and be-drabbled feathers, are unwittingly unitedin close bonds of sympathy with the great ones of the earth trailing their satin robes. The children culling nosegays in the woods, for the beautifying of their small persons, are but little removed from the aggres

sive propagandist of a popular conceit in physical culture. No one can escape from the thraldom of this tyrannical master, for where is the man who can live without clothing?

Ever since the beginning of things, when the savage came to the conclusion his paint was a little chilly and donned the furs of animals, frills have ruled the world from a throne so firmly established that the discrowned heads of nations may well gaze upon it with impotent envy.

While thrones have toppled to the ground, and the murder of kings and princes has confronted the sight of outraged nations; while human beings have been tortured and starved, and their children have been crying for bread for body and soul, the twist of a braid of hair, the length and height