beauty; it gives us just what is needful and no more, whereas
ugliness is always extravagant; ugliness is a spendthrift and
wastes its material; in fine, ugliness--and I would commend this
remark to Mr. Wentworth Huyshe--ugliness, as much in costume as in
anything else, is always the sign that somebody has been
unpractical. So the costume of the future in England, if it is
founded on the true laws of freedom, comfort, and adaptability to
circumstances, cannot fail to be most beautiful also, because
beauty is the sign always of the rightness of principles, the
mystical seal that is set upon what is perfect, and upon what is
perfect only.

As for your other correspondent, the first principle of dress that
all garments should be hung from the shoulders and not from the
waist seems to me to be generally approved of, although an "Old
Sailor" declares that no sailors or athletes ever suspend their
clothes from the shoulders, but always from the hips. My own
recollection of the river and running ground at Oxford--those two
homes of Hellenism in our little Gothic town--is that the best
runners and rowers (and my own college turned out many) wore always
a tight jersey, with short drawers attached to it, the whole
costume being woven in one piece. As for sailors, it is true, I
admit, and the bad custom seems to involve that constant "hitching
up" of the lower garments which, however popular in transpontine
dramas, cannot, I think, but be considered an extremely awkward
habit; and as all awkwardness comes from discomfort of some kind, I
trust that this point in our sailor's dress will be looked to in
the coming reform of our navy, for, in spite of all protests, I
hope we are about to reform everything, from torpedoes to top-hats,
and from crinolettes to cruises.