Page:Costume, fanciful, historical, and theatrical (1906).djvu/313

xx "inky cloak," gold-bordered and crimson-lined, and his famous father's silver- clasped belt, brings the latest and not the least accomplished of Hamlets vividly to my mind's eye. Each tone, gesture, action, falls naturally into a harmony of memory, because the costume was as appropriate as it was picturesquely charming—in fact, it was right, which proves the truth of Sir Henry Irving's doctrine, "You can take it that the right thing on the stage is at once the most effective and the most becoming." A wise doctrine, which may be applied with irrefutable truth to the art of costume on and off the boards—a doctrine which may obtain as guidance through the land of dress in all the centuries, under all circumstances, past and to come.