Various

“ It is in itself an invigoration to be gently waited upon and fed by sweet, comely young nurses, none of whom is allowed to enter fully upon her duties till she has proved herself fond of children and deft to manage them. And what a delight it must be to have constantly on your bed wonderful picture-books, and on the tray that slides along the top rails of your cot the whole animal creation trooping out of Noah's Ark, armies of tin soldiers, and wonderful woolly dogs with amazing barks concealed in their bowels, or—if you happen to be a girl—dolls, dressed and undressed, of all sorts and sizes! ”

“ Women are every day making more history for men to paint. Let them dress so as to be paintable. Dress how they will, they are always admired, and reverenced, and loved. But I cannot say the same of their dress. The time has been when, in order to paint a woman, the first necessity for the artist was to get possession of her great-grandmother's gown. Under such circumstances the painting of contemporary life must be limited to portraiture; and everything that limits the range of art, limits its splendour and the hold it should have on our affections. ”

“ Would she not shrink from him with horror when she knew? And would not his boy—his little Jim!—when he grew up (if he ever grew up) be ashamed of the father who had so dishonoured his name?
"Oh, my God!" he cried in his misery and grief. "Let me bear the utmost punishment of my sin, but spare them! Punish not the innocent with the guilty! Let my dear wife and child live in peace and honour before Thee!"
He could not eat a morsel of breakfast—he had scarcely tasted food or drink for two whole days—and he could not rest in the lodgings. ”

“ But however swift her spring, however slippery the block of granite, she would stop short, without motion, at the sound of the word "Mignonne!"
One day, in the most dazzling sunshine, an enormous bird was hovering in the air. The Provençal left his panther to examine this new visitor; but after waiting for a moment the deserted sultana uttered a hoarse growl.
"Blessed if I don't believe that she is jealous!" he exclaimed, perceiving that her eyes were once more hard and rigid. "A woman's soul has passed into her body, that is certain!" ”

“ Slap-bang! He remembered well the morning of Whit-Monday, when he had taken Francis to the circus. He could hear still the child's delighted laughter, when the clown—the beautiful clown, all be-starred with golden spangles, and with a huge many-coloured butterfly glittering on the back of his black costume—skipped across the track, tripped up the riding-master by the heels, took a walk upon his hands, or threw up to the gas-light the soft felt caps, which he dexterously caught upon his skull, where, one by one, they formed a pyramid ”

“ The whole costume is a failure so far as beauty and picturesqueness are concerned, but it claims to be practical, and if there were only a little more room in it for all the purposes of life I should say it succeeded well.
It also succeeds in something else. It paints truly the character of the women of the age. Matter-of-fact, sharp, full of common sense, with an eye to the main chance they are, and their tailor-made gowns express this most clearly. Not much room seemingly is there for romantic or motherly love, for devotion and self-sacrifice, in those tightly-fitting cases. ”

“ I would answer, That form which, tall or short, or of light or dark colour, most emphasises human characteristics furthest removed from suggestions of the inferior creatures—a principle so well understood and acted upon by the great Greek artists. How beautiful when, in the words of Ruskin, "Fairest, because purest and thoughtfullest, trained in all high knowledge, as in all courteous art—in dance, in song, in sweet wit, in lofty learning, in loftier courage, in loftiest love—able alike to cheer, to enchant, or save the souls of men." ”

“ But it must be a change from one loveliness to another. To see a rose is always an exquisite delight; so it is to see a lily. But we are not called upon to decide once for all which we prefer, and if we choose the rose to kill all the lilies. Thus it should be with dress: change is desirable, but it must be on the understanding that no ugly thing shall be tolerated for the sake of fashion.
That is, I think, the first great principle; and attention to it would rid us for ever of the danger of the recurrence of those monstrosities that have brought the very name of "fashion" into contempt. ”

“ There, if they are unwell only, they cannot but toss and cry and suffer on their bed, exasperate their hard-worked mother, and drive their home-coming father forth to drown his sorrows in the flowing bowl: here they are wrapped softly in a heavenly calm, ministered to by skilful, tender hands, and spoken to by soft and kindly voices: so that they wonder, and insensibly are soothed and cease to suffer. Until he has been in a children's hospital, no one would guess how thoughtful, and good-tempered, and contented a sick child can be amid his strange surroundings. ”

“ I confess to a feeling of wonder when I look at Sir Joshua Reynolds and Romney's beautiful women. I wonder how they are going to get away from the pedestal or tree against which they are leaning without distressing very much their soft draperies when they move. But—how tender, how graceful, how refined, how fascinating, how pure and faithful and womanly these gentle beings are! Their dresses were the outcome of the character and customs of the period, but although very feminine and beautiful were not practical, and would not be adapted to our present needs. ”

“ Mignonne came up, her jaws besmeared with blood. She received the caresses of her companion with deep purrs of satisfaction. Her eyes, now full of softness, were turned, with even greater tenderness than the night before, to the Provençal, who spoke to her as to a pet.
"Ah! Beauty! you are a respectable young woman, are you not? You like petting, don't you? Are you not ashamed of yourself? You have been eating a Maugrabin! Well! they're animals, as you are. But don't you go and gobble up a Frenchman. ”

“ The average man is as bad as the average woman; he likes pretty little waists and neat little feet quite as much as the recipient of his misplaced admiration. Indeed, as I think it is incontestable that women dress more to please men than to please themselves, we men are probably more to blame than the women for the vagaries of female costume. But the artists have, or ought to have, a better taste in these matters than the outside public. They all affect to admire the masterpieces of classical art, and they are, few of them, entirely ignorant of what the human form ought to be. ”

“ I rose, and walked about awhile, watching the long line of fires upon the heights beyond the village of Cheverino.
When the sharp night air had thoroughly refreshed my blood I went back to the fire. I rolled my mantle round me, and I shut my eyes, trusting not to open them till daybreak. But sleep refused to visit me. Insensibly my thoughts grew doleful. I told myself that I had not a friend among the hundred thousand men who filled that plain. If I were wounded, I should be placed in hospital, in the hands of ignorant and careless surgeons. ”

“ This room was probably the dining-room of the mansion in Cromwell's days, and here, about the table and the fire where the children sit, must have gathered grave and austere Puritans, and soldiers in clanking jack-boots from among Cromwell's invincible Ironsides. Over the fireplace is still to be seen in complete preservation General Ireton's coat-of-arms, and between the windows are mirrors of the same date. But we have little more than crossed the threshold when all thought of Puritans and Ironsides is banished by a cry not unlike the laugh of a hyena. ”

“ No lady can be really well and beautifully dressed if what she wears outrages Nature's intentions in the structure of the human frame. Such outrages are: a waist like a stove pipe, shoes that compress the toes into a crumpled mass of deformity, and, it might even be added, gloves that confine the hand till it looks little better than a fin—but as this inflicts no permanent injury, it does not matter—but the foot is irredeemably ruined, to the destruction of spring and grace in movement, and to no inconsiderable injury to health. ”

“ But he was a bachelor, and there was not an unmarried lady in the congregation who did not aspire to be his wife, which put him in the awkward and invidious position of having to prefer one out of many. He astonished and offended all the well-to-do ladies, by falling in love with and marrying the pretty, shy governess of one of the wealthiest families—a girl who had not been regarded as having the smallest chance of occupying the proud position of minister's wife. His marriage alienated the women, and through them cooled the ardour of the men. ”

“ I should say that never was a pretty face rendered one whit the prettier by the body of a dead animal above it, but that on the contrary the attention is distracted from the living beauty beneath, and the mind is saddened and disgusted by the association of cruelty, and death, and decay, with the tender and beautiful womanhood which should rightly only call forth deepest feelings of admiration and respect. ”

“ At the head of the troops was the Sultan himself. He and his horse were a blaze of jewels, a sight which filled his bare-foot troops with honest pride. The most costly delicacies were carried in his train, and the thought that he alone would feast on these dainties brought great consolation to the hungry warriors.
Mahmoud, too, fitted out a great army; of how many men history does not tell, but at any rate they were twice as many as the enemy could put into the field. ”

“ I do not agree with the general opinion that a good-looking woman never looks so well as on her horse. If she do look well, I believe it to be in spite of her habit and not because of it, and that all the charm which a well-cut, appropriate, and simple garment can give to a graceful figure could perfectly well be retained, and yet that slightly more liberty might be allowed as to texture of material and colour (though the colour should always be quiet and mellow) and appropriate ornamentation by braiding the body and sleeves of the habit. ”

“ Architecture and decorative design are taught in the schools, but dress, which has existed since the world began, has no guiding laws, and sways from the severely ugly and matter-of-fact to the wildest extravagance of form and colour in a manner truly grotesque, were it not so sad to those who love ideal beauty, and whose eyes are daily outraged by flagrant sins against the laws of beauty and common sense. ”

“ Wyndham's cabin is seen at its best. There is to be a supper-party at the conclusion of the performance downstairs, and the tables for the time being are burdened down with every luxury. Fairy lamps are peeping out amongst the pines and hot-house grapes, and the lamps hanging from the roof are surrounded with flowers and ferns, whilst the electric light shines out brilliantly from amongst the blossoms. ”

“ But the truth is that every attempt to modify the human form is an act of savagery, and any form of dress that simulates a modification, whether worn in Pekin or in Paris, or in London, is a savage dress, and carries with it the additional shame of being a sham. Let us be content with women as God made them. Let them be dressed, not altered. In a word, no dress can be really beautiful that suggests a personal deformity. ”

“ I should indeed be disposed to decline your courteous invitation to be "drawn" upon the question, on the ground that I am not a figure painter, but for the consideration that although unhappily an artist is obliged in his work to limit the range of his vision, yet the beauty that exists in the world is the common heritage of us all, and every artist is, or should be, equally appreciative of the loveliness of our companions in life, and jealous of the safety and honour of the shrine at which we all worship. ”

“ Dear Sir,—The questions you send me regarding my opinion of the present style of ladies' dress cover too large and varied a field to be disposed of in a moment—that is, if one could dispose of them even after many and many a month, let alone moments. The one virtue of the women's dress of to-day is its variety and individuality. Those who are really dressed and not merely clothed, have their dresses "created" for them, and they belong to each other. ”

“ What do these men, with their usually grimy aprons and often blackened faces, get for their work in turning out so much coin of the realm? They seem to have a very good time of it on the whole, and the conditions of light, warmth, and safety under which they labour are certainly in striking contrast to the trials, the dangers, and the dreariness of the lives of those who unearth the metal. ”