VIII.—SIGNS OF "THE GOOD TIME COMING."
N. P. Willis, in the Home Journal, writing on the dress-reform agitation, thus closes his disquisition:
"We repeat, that we see signs which look to us as if the present excitement as to one fashion were turning into a universal inquiry as to the sense or propriety of any fashion at all. When the subject shall have been fully discussed, and public attention fully awakened, common sense will probably take the direction of the matter, and opinion will settle in some shape which, at least, may reject former excesses and absurdities. Some moderate similarity of dress is doubtless necessary, and there are proper times and places for long dresses and short dresses. These and other points the ladies are likely to come to new decisions about. While they consult health, cleanliness, and convenience, however, we venture to express a hope that they will get rid of the present slavish uniformity—that what is becoming to each may be worn without fear of unfashionableness, and that in this way we may see every woman dressed somewhat differently and to her own best advantage, and the proportion of beauty largely increased, as it would, thereby, most assuredly be."
FOOTNOTE:
[A] "Hints toward Physical Perfection; or, How to Acquire and Retain Beauty, Grace, and Strength, and Secure Long Life and Perpetual Youth."
III.
SELF-CULTURE
There is no man who can so easily and so naturally become in all points a Gentleman Knight, without fear and without reproach, as a true American Republican.—James Parton.