is a hard fate for the hypothetical poor woman with intelligence, who secretly desires a garment that will be no more conspicuous next year than this, and longs to put some of her money into good materials. It is only a very good (and expensive) dressmaker whose handiwork can both elude the exaggerations of the present fashion and foreshadow the essentials of the next. That is another thing that every woman knows.

The hypothetical poor woman with intelligence must content herself with looking a trayesty on the successful chorus-girl. This, unfortunately, she comes only too easily to do. "But," some one might object, "the poor woman is precisely an economic, not an æsthetic consideration." Granted: yet since we must all dress, why not invent dresses that are widely adaptable to different materials, to different occasions, to different human types? It would purge our streets of many a sorry and sordid spectacle, and in that sense would be an æsthetic service both particular and public. But, as it is, we must all dress alike: blonde and brune, fat and thin, tall and short, rich and poor. The socialists have threatened us with no more rigid sisterhood than this.

The principle of fashion is, as I have intimated, the principle of the kaleidoscope. A new year can only bring us a new combination of the same elements; and about once in so

often we go back and begin over. Recently we have had rather a Napoleonic tendency. Occasionally we are Colonial. We have been known to be Japanese. Now and then we have a severe classic moment-usually very unbecoming to all of us. We used to hear from our grandmothers of silk dresses that could "stand alone." What we need now is a silk dress that could somehow manage to run.

There is no reward, in the world of woman's dress, for a successful experiment. The most charming design in the world has no future. One is seldom tempted to apostrophize a fashion with, "Verweile doch! du bist so schön!"; but if one were, the adjuration would be as vain as ever. And that is another sin against beauty, for it deprives a woman of the privilege of dressing as best becomes her. There is something peculiarly bitter in watching the superseding of a mode that wholly suits one. Now and then a woman confides to me her intention of keeping to some style that is especially adapted to her. "It suits me, and I am going to stick to it," she declares. She has found that it makes the most of all her "points"; it has given her, perhaps, renewed respect for her appearance and fresh zest for life. Such a woman is always, I believe, sincerely congratulated by her friends. They do not imitate her, but they really and unmaliciously envy her her point of view. She is

proud of herself, and keeps to her decision for-say-a year. I never knew a woman to try such an experiment longer. She finds herself invariably conspicuous-and no well-bred woman likes to be unnecessarily conspicuous. For modesty's sake she must adopt the extravagance of the moment. Otherwise, she discovers herself to be not rational but "queer," and her attempt at wisdom to be the worst of affectations. It may be ironic that a woman who looks best in the mode of the Empress Josephine should be forced to dress en chinoise; but it is more than ironic when she has to dress en chinoise one year and en grecque the next. I have once or twice known elderly women who achieved something like a fixed costume for themselves; but they were semi-invalids. The consistent costume is, like the nun's habit, the best possible proof of having renounced the world.

And into what pits do the great couturières not fall in the search for something "new" enough to destroy the eligibility of all last year's frocks! I never knew what ladies patronized, a few years since, the London woman who invented "emotional dressmaking"; but I can testify to having seen, in a show-window of one of the largest department stores in America, a model from her-is not the word "atelier"? A large group of plain women were gathered, staring at it. I joined the group and

read the legend. The name of the dress was "Passion's Thrall." At least, as the White Knight said, "that was what the name was called." Within the shop, in the spirit of curiosity, I followed a similar group to the "department" where such things live. Again, the emotional dressmaker. Isolated in a glass drawing-room, stood two draped figures: "Her Dear Desire," and "Afterwards." I could have imagined some one's buying "Her Dear Desire"-it was of sad-colored chiffon. But I could not imagine any one's buying "Afterwards"; and it was inconceivable that the name should help to sell it. I am bound to say that eventually I found myself alone in the contemplation of this sartorial drama. The crowd had followed a living model who was illustrating the possibility and method of walking in the new "Paquin skirt." The gravity of every one concerned was unbelievable. Mr. Granville Barker has done some admirable satire on dressmaking in The Madras House; but his third act is positively less poignant than a reality like that.

Yet this is not the worst. Even if we said to ourselves, "Let us be always-but varyinglyugly," we should not have phrased our greatest danger. Our greatest danger is simply the loss of all standards of beauty in dress. "Why do all the women walk like ducks this year?" was the question put to a friend of mine, years

since, by a younger brother. He did not know that a quite new kind of corset had suddenly, during the summer months, "come in." To wear it meant change of gait and posture, eventually actual change of shape. Yet we all wore it and doubtless went on praising the Venus of Melos as we did so. The notion that, after we have learned from the scientists to deal in evolutionary periods of millions of years, we ought not naïvely to expect to alter the human form in a season or two, never occurred, I fancy, to any of us. "Business is business," men are credited with saying, when invited to apply abstract laws of honor. "Fashion is fashion," women would surely say if invited to apply abstract laws of beauty.

The worst thing is that the drapery or the trimming that is lovely and desirable in our eyes one year, is unspeakably offensive to our gaze the next. (Consider, for example, the chequered history of fringe!-its career like that of a French Pretender.) Fashion has vitiated our taste to that point. Our welcoming raptures are as sincere as our shuddering rejections. There was a time when sleeves could not-I say it advisedly-be too large. I remember seeing a girl turn to edge sideways through a large door, for fear of crushing the sleeves of a new bodice. Her brothers laughed; but I-I was very young-felt a pang of clear, unmitigated envy. I remember at that time