Book Description:
Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: THE POWER OF CLOTHES. One cannot always tell by a man's coat what kind of a heart he has under it; still, his dress is apt to be the out blossoming of his character, and is not to be disregarded. We make no indiscriminate onslaught upon customs of dross. Why did God put spots on the pansy, or etch the fern leaf ? And what arc china asters good for if style and colour are of no importance ? The realm is as wide as the world, and as far reaching as all the generations over which fashion hath extended her sceptre. For thousands of years she hath sat queen over all the earth, and the revolutions that rock down all other thrones have not in the slightest affected her domination. Other constitutions have been torn, and other laws trampled; but to her decrees conquerors have bowed their plumes and kings have uncovered. Victoria is not Queen of England; Napoleon wasnot Emperor of France; Isabella was not Queen of Spain. Fashion has been regnant over all the earth; and lords and dukes, kings and queens, have been the subjects of her realm. She arranged the mantle of the patriarch, and the toga of the Roman ; the small shoe of the Chinese women, and the turban of the Turk; the furs of the Laplander, and the calumet of the Indian chieftain. Hottentot and Siberian obey the mandate, as well as Englishman and American. Her laws are written on. parchment and palm leaf, on broken arch and cathedral tracery. She arranged how the Egyptian mummy should be wound, and how Ctesar should ride, and how the Athenians should speak, and how through the Venetian canals the gondoliers should row their pleasure boat. Her hand hath hung the pillars with embroidery, and strewn the floor with plush. Her loom hath woven fabrics graceful as the snow and pure as the light. Her voice is heard in the gold...
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