Besides, I think, on the whole, there is less
self-assertion in diamonds than in dogmas. I don't know where you will
find a sweeter portrait of humility than in Esther, the poor play-girl of
King Ahasuerus; yet Esther put on her royal apparel when she went before
her lord. I have no doubt she was a more gracious and agreeable person
than Deborah, who judged the people and wrote the story of Sisera. The
wisest woman you talk with is ignorant of something that you know, but an
elegant woman never forgets her elegance.
Dowdyism is clearly an expression of imperfect vitality. The highest
fashion is intensely alive,--not alive necessarily to the truest and best
things, but with its blood tingling, as it were, in all its extremities
and to the farthest point of its surface, so that the feather in its
bonnet is as fresh as the crest of a fighting-cock, and the rosette on
its slipper as clean-cut and pimpant (pronounce it English fashion,--it
is a good word) as a dahlia. As a general rule, that society where
flattery is acted is much more agreeable than that where it is spoken.
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