new combination of edges and folds and puckers, and womanhood plunges to the bottom of its purse with an eagerness to avoid the suspicion of financial stringency; while the discarded hats and dresses percolate romantically through lower strata of society. Is it not good for trade?
The masculine smile is, however, wearing thinner, as the absurd despotism is now almost as great among the stronger sex. Here also a group of commercial mathematicians evolve, every few months, a new combination of brim and crown and curve, and artists design new patterns of cloth and new contours of garment, and tyrannical journalists hold up to public execration the man of means or position who dares to find last year’s fashion sufficiently comfortable or decorative. “Not worn now, sir,” says the shopman, with indulgent smile, when you go to renew the hat or coat that has pleased you. The bewildering thing is, not that manufacturers should be eager to sell us new garments every few weeks, but that we bow with such docility to this ludicrous fiction of monarchy. Long trousers or short trousers, creased trousers or turned-up trousers, tight coats or loose coats, bowlers or trilbys—we listen submissively to the mandate, without the least consideration of our appearance or convenience.
Indeed, the only things that are permanent in this extravagant procession of fashions are the things that are ugly, inconvenient, or unhealthy, especially on the masculine side. The silk hat
