to gild his mirror. Not until nudity be popular will the art of
costume be really acknowledged. Nor even then will it be approved.
Communities are ever jealous (quite naturally) of the artist who works
for his own pleasure, not for theirs--more jealous by far of him whose
energy is spent only upon the glorification of himself alone. Carlyle
speaks of dandyism as a survival of `the primeval superstition, self-
worship.' `La vanite',' are almost the first words of Monsieur
D'Aurevilly, `c'est un sentiment contre lequel tout le monde est
impitoyable.' Few remember that the dandy's vanity is far different
from the crude conceit of the merely handsome man. Dandyism is, after
all, one of the decorative arts. A fine ground to work upon is its
first postulate. And the dandy cares for his physical endowments only
in so far as they are susceptible of fine results. They are just so
much to him as to the decorative artist is inilluminate parchment, the
form of a white vase or the surface of a wall where frescoes shall be.

Consider the words of Count D'Orsay, spoken on the eve of some duel,
`We are not fairly matched. If I were to wound him in the face it
would not matter; but if he were to wound me, ce serait vraiment
dommage!' There we have a pure example of a dandy's peculiar vanity--
`It would be a real pity!' They say that D'Orsay killed his man--no
matter whom--in this duel. He never should have gone out. Beau
Brummell never risked his dandyhood in these mean encounters. But
D'Orsay was a wayward, excessive creature, too fond of life and other
follies to achieve real greatness. The power of his predecessor, the
Father of Modern Costume, is over us yet. All that is left of
D'Orsay's art is a waistcoat and a handful of rings--vain relics of no
more value for us than the fiddle of Paganini or the mask of
Menischus! I think that in Carolo's painting of him, we can see the
strength, that was the weakness, of le jeune Cupidon. His fingers are