Page:In a winter city, by Ouida.djvu/142

Rh groom model in everything. This is thought an advanced education."

Lady Hilda laughed.

"The rich Egyptians go to English universities, and take back to the Nile a passion for rat-hunting and brandy, and the most hideous hats and coats in the universe; and then think they have improved on the age of the Pharaohs. I hope Italy will never be infected, but I am afraid; you have gasworks, tramways, and mixed marriages, and your populace has almost entirely abandoned costume."

"And in the cities we have lost the instinct of good taste in the most fatal manner. Perhaps it has died out with the old costumes. Who knows? Dress is after all the thermometer of taste. Modern male attire is of all others the most frightful, the most grotesque, the most gloomy, and, to our climate, the most unsuitable."

"Yes. Tall hats and tail coats appear to me to be like the locusts, wherever they spread they bear barrenness in their train. But the temper of your people will always procure to you some natural grace, some natural elegance."