flock from the boulevards of one capital and from the avenues of
another to be clad in Conduit Street. Even into Oxford, that curious
little city, where nothing is ever born nor anything ever quite dies,
the force of the movement has penetrated, insomuch that tasselled cap
and gown of degree are rarely seen in the streets or colleges. In a
place which was until recent times scarcely less remote, Japan, the
white and scarlet gardens are trod by men who are shod in boots like
our own, who walk--rather strangely still--in close-cut cloth of
little colour, and stop each other from time to time, laughing to show
how that they too can furl an umbrella after the manner of real
Europeans.

It is very nice, this universal acquiescence in the dress we have
designed, but, if we reflect, not wonderful. There are three apparent
reasons, and one of them is aesthetic. So to clothe the body that its
fineness be revealed and its meanness veiled has been the aesthetic
aim of all costume, but before our time the mean had never been
struck. The ancient Romans went too far. Muffled in the ponderous
folds of a toga, Adonis might pass for Punchinello, Punchinello for
Adonis. The ancient Britons, on the other hand, did not go far enough.
And so it had been in all ages down to that bright morning when Mr.
Brummell, at his mirror, conceived the notion of trousers and simple
coats. Clad according to his convention, the limbs of the weakling
escape contempt, and the athlete is unobtrusive, and all is well. But
there is also a social reason for the triumph of our costume--the
reason of economy. That austerity, which has rejected from its toilet
silk and velvet and all but a few jewels, has made more ample the
wardrobes of Dives, and sent forth Irus nicely dressed among his
fellows. And lastly there is a reason of psychology, most potent of
all, perhaps. Is not the costume of today, with its subtlety and