First impressions are apt
to be permanent; it is therefore of importance that they should be
favourable. The dress of an individual is that circumstance from which you
first form your opinion of him. It is even more prominent than manner, It
is indeed the only thing which is remarked in a casual encounter, or
during the first interview. It, therefore, should be the first
care.
What style is to our thoughts, dress is
to our persons. It may supply the place of more solid qualities, and
without it the most solid are of little avail. Numbers have owed their
elevation to their attention to the toilet. Place, fortune, marriage have
all been lost by neglecting it.
Your dress
should always be consistent with your age and your natural exterior. That
which looks outr, on one man, will be agreeable on another. As success in
this respect depends almost entirely upon particular circumstances and
personal peculiarities, it is impossible to give general directions of
much importance. We can only point out the field for study and research;
it belongs to each one's own genius and industry to deduce the results.
However ugly you may be, rest assured that there is some style of
habiliment which will make you passable.
If,
for example, you have a stain upon your cheek which rivals in brilliancy
the best Chateau-Margout; or, are afflicted with a nose whose lustre dims
the ruby, you may employ such hues of dress, that the eye, instead of
being shocked by the strangeness of the defect, will be charmed by the
graceful harmony of the colours. Every one cannot indeed be an Adonis, but
it is his own fault if he is an Esop.
Almost
every defect of face may be concealed by a judicious use and arrangement
of hair. Take care, however, that your hair be not of one colour and your
whiskers of another; and let your wig be large enough to cover the whole
of your red or white hair. It is evident, therefore, that though a man may
be ugly, there is no necessity for his being shocking.