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162. I am not political economist enough to know whether the same happy results might not be brought about by purer motives, and nobler means; but it has always appeared to me one of the greatest of existing absurdities, that a whole community of people, differing in complexion, form, and feature, as widely as the same species can diner, should not only desire to wear precisely the same kind of dress, but should often labour, strive, and struggle, deceive, envy, and cheat, and spend their own substance, and often more than they can lawfully call their own—to do what? To obtain a dress, which to them is most unbecoming, or an article of furniture wholly unsuited to themselves and their establishment.

My own idea, and I believe it is founded upon a long-cherished, and perhaps too ardent admiration of personal beauty, is, that fashion ought to favour all which is most becoming. It is true, we should at first be greatly at a loss to know what was becoming, because we should have the power and the prejudice of fashion to contend with; but there can be no doubt that individual, as well as public taste, would be improved by such exercise, and that our manufactures would in the end be equally benefited, though for some time it might be difficult to calculate upon the probable demand. Nor can I think that female vanity would be more encouraged than it now is, by thus consulting personal and relative fitness; because the young woman who now goes into company fashionably disfigured, believes herself to be quite as beautiful as if she was really so. Neither can I see that we are not bound to study how to make the best of our appearance, for the sake of our friends, as well as how to make the best of our manners, our furniture, and our food.

Fashion, however, never takes this into account. According to her arbitrary law, the woman of sallow