do with the scope of this letter) a woman's clothes should be made by a woman only, and all who are loyal to their own sex would employ each other in an occupation so feminine.
Then they are unwomanly because they imitate men's dress, and I don't know that I should make a sin of this, were it not that at the present time men's dress is too truly hideous to be imitated even by a savage of darkest Africa!
It is for this reason that I find the riding habit so ugly and inartistic. Practical it is, but it apes the coat and the hat (!) of the man, and now that his cardboard shirt and collar are often added, I have no words strong enough that I may use to express the depths of my dislike.
I do not agree with the general opinion that a good-looking woman never looks so well as on her horse. If she do look well, I believe it to be in spite of her habit and not because of it, and that all the charm which a well-cut, appropriate, and simple garment can give to a graceful figure could perfectly well be retained, and yet that slightly more liberty might be allowed as to texture of material and colour (though the colour should always be quiet and mellow) and appropriate ornamentation by braiding the body and sleeves of the habit. By these means its hard severity would be somewhat softened, and without destroying the simple lines it would be rendered more feminine, and the fitness of the garment for its purpose would by no means be interfered with.
My objection to tailor-made gowns is that they give no scope for graceful, natural movement. In these the figure is made to fit the dress, and not the dress the figure, and if the wearer lift her arm above her head she must burst—or one feels that, having originally begun as a human being, well, she ought to burst if she doesn't. I am not fond of inventing sins, and think we already have enough for all our needs, and I cannot see—to save my life I cannot see—the harm of moving if one wants to do so. The whole costume is a failure so far as beauty and picturesqueness are concerned, but it claims to be practical, and if there were only a little more room in it for all the purposes of life I should say it succeeded well.
It also succeeds in something else. It paints truly the character of the women of the age. Matter-of-fact, sharp, full of common sense, with an eye to the main chance they are, and their tailor-made gowns express this most clearly. Not much room seemingly is there for romantic or motherly love, for devotion and self-sacrifice, in those tightly-fitting cases.
How different are the women of Sir Joshua Reynolds' time! Delicate, ethereal creatures, with swaying, soft movements, not fit for this hard every-day world. These exquisite beings went out in thinnest of evening shoes into the wet grass. They never wore anything more practical than soft white satin, even in a thunderstorm, and they never saw the thunderstorm coming. They knew not of homespun nor of heavy boots, and when their true loves went to the wars, they did not wait until they came back, but went into consumption and died. At least many of them did, though some lived to be our great-grandmothers.
At any rate it was the proper thing to do in those days, and it is not the proper thing now. No—our maidens no longer faint, and pine, and die, nor do they wait either—they marry someone else!
I confess to a feeling of wonder when I look at Sir Joshua Reynolds and Romney's beautiful women. I wonder how they are going to get away from the pedestal or tree against which they are leaning without distressing very much their soft draperies when they move. But—how tender, how graceful, how refined, how fascinating, how pure and faithful and womanly these gentle beings are! Their dresses were the outcome of the character and customs of the period, but although very feminine and beautiful were not practical, and would not be adapted to our present needs.
And this brings me to what I want to ask. What constitutes fitness and womanliness in dress? Do the dresses of the period possess these qualities? I certainly think not always, and without fitness and womanliness no dress can be artistically beautiful.
To be beautiful, it should be the expression of a beautiful mind, a beautiful body, and of perfect health and ease, and of natural delight in movement.
Also, it should have no association with pain.
No dress can be beautiful that is disfigured by an innocent animal wantonly sacrificed to the vanity and egotism of the wearer.
What womanly woman would wear real astracan on her jacket (if she knows what real astracan is), or the corpses of gulls,
