Page:Advice to young ladies on their duties and conduct in life - Arthur - 1849.djvu/99

Rh this subject we do not feel competent to give any particular directions. In matters of female attire, a woman’s taste is, as a general thing, always superior to a man’s. Still, we see a great many badly-dressed women, where the defect does not arise from any want of the means to dress, but from bad taste. The fault of over-dressing is the most common, and this is almost always attended with an unharmonious arrangement of colors.

All that pertains to the particular modes of dress, and to the harmony of colors, has been so fully set forth in the various books prepared for and accessible to young ladies, that for us to attempt any thing of the kind here would be entirely useless, even if we had given sufficient attention to the subject to be able clearly to set the matter forth, which we confess that we have not. We can tell when we see a lady dressed in good taste, but we cannot tell a lady exactly how she should dress to be in good taste. It is much easier to detect a fault than to produce a