Overalls

“ If the uniformity of figures, parts, or lines were truly the chief cause of beauty, the more exactly uniform their appearances were kept, the more pleasure the eye would receive: but this is so far from being the case, that when the mind has been once satisfied, that the parts answer one another, with so exact an uniformity, as to preserve to the whole the character of fitness to stand, to move, to sink, to swim, to fly, &c. ”

“ Yet, despite his carelessness of dress and of manner, and sometimes of the niceties of language, you gained a feeling that you were in the presence of a first-class man and a gentleman—of a first-class man, who through some crotchet of fate or some minor defect of character remained a first-class man in a tiny sphere and was more or less contented that it should be so. ”

“ As the index tells us the contents of books, and directs to the particular chapter, even so does the outward habit and superficial order of garment denote the spirit and demonstratively point out, like to a marginal note, the internal qualities of the soul.
We believe it to be the duty of all, young and old, to make their persons, as far as possible, agreeable {376} to those with whom they are associated. If possible, dress yourself fine where others are fine, and plain where the apparel of others is plain. ”

“ If therefore you find some tales in one collection bearing a close resemblance with those you have read in another, you should make it a matter of interest to observe what is individual in the character of each, and to trace the points both of diversity and analogy in the mode of expression in which they are clothed, and which will be found just as marked as the difference in costume of the respective peoples who have told them each after their own fashion. ”

“ Those principles of natural beauty which formed the subject of the two preceding essays are all exemplified in the ideally perfect human figure. Though essentially a unit, there is a well marked division into right and left—"Hands to hands, and feet to feet, in one body grooms and brides." ”

“ Can you imagine a Lord Chesterton in tattered clothes, a Queen Elizabeth in a limp calico frock, a George Washington in a conspicuously checked suit? Unmistakable qualities of character are discernible in the clothes we wear—and for that reason we should be particularly careful to make them a true expression of our personality. ”

“ She weighed this, a forefinger against a cheek.
“The big ways are those which indicate character, aren’t they? While the little ones only make for habits. Men differ as to their habits, but in character they’re all cut on the same pattern—two or three patterns at most.” ”

“ And through the inevitable reaction of environment upon the man, the central point in his valuation of men and women tended to shift from the fundamentals, mind and character, to the surface qualities—dress and style and manners and refinement, and even dress. ”

“ On your style often depends your own character,—almost always the character given you by the world. If you adopt the lofty style,—if you string together noble phrases and swelling Sonora,—you have expressed, avowed, a frame of mind which you will insensibly desire to act up to; the desire gradually begets the capacity. ”

“ In accordance with this general law, that shape is as character, well-proportioned persons have harmony of features, and well-balanced minds; whereas those, some of whose features stick right out, and others fall far in, have uneven, ill-balanced characters, so that homely, disjointed exteriors indicate corresponding interiors, while evenly-balanced and exquisitely formed men and women have well-balanced and susceptible mentalities. ”

“ These arts seem to be resorted to all the world over by people who do not go in for much clothing—apparently on the principle that the human face and figure need some modification in order to differentiate them as such. ”

“ One of the most, perhaps the most, fundamental and important classification of men and women is that which puts them into two divisions or two temperaments, the active, or tending to be active, on the one hand, and the reflective, or tending to be reflective, on the other. ”

“ I here assume, what is agreed on by most writers, that beauty of form—so far as it is independent of sensuous pleasure on the one hand, and pleasures of association and suggestion on the other, is resolvable into the presence of a certain order among manifold details, which order is commonly spoken of as unity in variety. With respect, first of all, to the way in which the element of variety and contrast presents itself in visible form, a word or two will suffice. ”

“ There should be in the least, as well as in the greatest parts of a gentleman, ‘les manieres nobles’. Sense will teach you some, observation others; attend carefully to the manners, the diction, the motions, of people of the first fashion, and form your own upon them. On the other hand, observe a little those of the vulgar, in order to avoid them: for though the things which they say or do may be the same, the manner is always totally different: and in that, and nothing else, consists the characteristic of a man of fashion. ”

“ If then both or either of these motives change such a fellow, in about six months’ time, to such a degree, as that he is not to be known again, how much stronger should both these motives be with you, to acquire, in the utmost perfection, the whole exercise of the people of fashion, with whom you are to live all your life? Ambition should make you resolve to be at least their equal in that exercise, as well as the fear of punishment; which most inevitably will attend the want of it. By that exercise, I mean the air, the manners, the graces, and the style of people of fashion. ”

“ And the outline of the one is complementary to the outline of the other; where the woman’s outline sinks in the man’s sticks out, and vice versa. Mentally and physically it is the same; they are, in fact, the two parts of that great jig-saw puzzle, Humanity. ”

“ Many diversities, however, both of moral and æsthetical judgments, may be traced to accidental causes. Some one who is greatly admired, or who possesses great influence, is distinguished by some peculiarity of appearance, or introduces some peculiarity of dress. ”

“ We may, then, add to our experience on the assumption of a uniformity in nature; we may fill in our picture of what is and has been, as experience gives it us, in such a way as to make the whole consistent with this uniformity. ”

“ On the other hand, potentially significant differences in personality have been lost sight of in programmes of uniform training. But however we evaluate the differences between men, the existence of these differences, natural and acquired, cannot be denied. ”

“ Instead, then, of attempting to imagine a world in which there should be no uniformities, let us suppose one in which none of the uniformities should have reference to characters interesting or important to us. ”

“ To-day, every fashion, whether of men’s or of women’s clothing, is entirely the creation of the male mind. A group of men in England direct the former, and a group of men in France autocratically prescribe the latter. ”

“ For in the case of changes of configuration within our experience the figure is supposed to be inherent when other qualities are stripped off, but the qualities are not supposed, like the shape which is left behind, to inhere in the subject of change, but to vanish altogether from the body. ”

“ In our study and research we have learned to associate many fine gradations of differences in proportion with their corresponding differences in mental aptitudes and character.
EXPRESSION
Everything about a man indicates his character. Color, form, size, structure, texture, consistency, and proportion indicate almost entirely the man's inherent qualities. It is important for us to determine, however, in sizing up men, what they have done with their natural qualifications. ”

“ We can therefore merely form the general notion of ‘quality’ in such a way as to lead us to seek further for the universal factor of all sensible qualities. Now since the classes of these qualities are altogether disparate,—warm and sweet, for example, having no common element in their content,—such universal factor lies solely in the form which our representation gives to them all. ”

“ Busy men, moreover, are given to detail, and detail fills the eye and ear; men of reflection deal more with principles, and these lie beyond the range of ordinary vision.
The proposition which I here put forward, based on many years of observation and study, is fundamental, and affects, more or less, a wide range of character in every individual. ”

“ And since elegance is impossible without good manners, and good manners are a convention, though a supremely good one, the society by which I surrounded myself was conventional; superficially, of course, for it is the business of a convention to be not more than superficial. ”

“ In classes that border upon the highest this effect is less evident; for in them—there is some object to contend for. Fashion gives them an inducement. They struggle to emulate the toga of their superiors. ”

“ If you are to be the model after which the boys and the girls—the most priceless product of the state—will both consciously and unconsciously fashion their lives, you must be in all things a worthy model. ”

“ It is one of the forms in which we naturally give expression to our tastes, our constructive faculties, our reason, our feelings, our habits—in a word, to our character, as a whole. This expression is often greatly modified by the arbitrary laws of Fashion, and by circumstances of time, place, and condition, which we can not wholly control; but can hardly be entirely falsified. Even that arch tyrant, the reigning Mode, whatever it may be, leaves us little room for choice in materials, forms, and colors, and the choice we make indicates our prominent traits of character. ”

“ When, however, the head is as wide at Ideality as at Cautiousness, the subject will be found possessed of unusual good taste, purity, refinement, elevation, and personal perfection. Half an inch forward of Ideality is the organ which appertains to dress, and secures personal neatness. In those who care but little what they wear, or how they appear, this organ will be found small. ”

“ The pursuit of a certain avocation, for a long period, is apt to warp one's nature to its inequalities; and as the character gradually assumes the peculiar shape, the personal appearance changes in a corresponding direction and degree. ”

“ Though we see in all the same evident desire to express strength yet we find considerable variety of physical type, far more so, in fact, than we find in the fifth century, which was dominated by a more or less definite ideal of physical beauty and proportion. ”

“ I contend then that certain features of character, it may be in very varying degrees of intensity, belong to the more active and passionless temperament, and certain other features attend on the more reflective and impassioned temperament. If it can be shown that there are two marked groups of elements in character—the more impassioned group and the less impassioned group—and that each group may be inferred to exist if but one or two of its characteristic elements are clearly seen, why even then much would be gained in the interpretation of history and of daily life. ”

“ We have seen that the distinction of primary from secondary qualities has not taken us far. Let us, without regard to it, and once more directly turning to what meets us, examine another way of making that intelligible. We find the world’s contents grouped into things and their qualities. ”

“ Distinction in good clothes, you know, one is never sure of. It may be only that a man’s tailor is distinguished. But distinction in indifferent garments is distinction indeed, and there before me I saw it. ”

“ But there are class distinctions, [Pg 20] among the industrious themselves; tremendous distinctions, which rise and fall to every degree in the infinite thermometer of human pain and of human power—distinctions of high and low, of lost and won, to the whole reach of man's soul and body. ”

“ But I must add further, that though the most perfect forms of each of the general divisions of the human figure are ideal, and superior to any individual form of that class, yet the highest perfection of the human figure is not to be found in any of them. ”

“ Various forms of natural character and temperament would no doubt be found to occur in constant proportions among any large group of persons of the same race, but what those proportions may be has never yet been investigated. ”

“ The difficulty becomes quite insurmountable if we attempt to assign precise dimensions to the details of configuration or to minute parts.
Many circumstances are opposed to the exactness of these measures. Even in the same person, one part is rarely in all respects similar to the corresponding part; we are taller in the morning than in the evening; and the proportions change at different periods of life. In different individuals, the differences are still more evident. Moreover, habits, professions, trades, all unite to oppose regularity in the proportions. ”

“ They have, in pursuance of their Theory, mapped out the human scull into compartments, to each of which they have assigned a particular faculty or sentiment, and they profess to tell, with some degree of accuracy, the individual character by the peculiar formation of the head. ”

“ The moment a quality has been distinguished in a fact that fact has been fitted into a class, the class which consists of all the facts in which that quality can be distinguished. Thus, in our original illustration, when you first distinguished warmth, etc., you were beginning to fit your fact into classes: when you perceived warmth you fitted it into the class of warm objects, and it was the same with the other qualities of roughness, size and smell. ”