" Even the cynic,
the man who defiantly wears old and queer clothes, is merely suffering
from a perversion of that animal instinct which causes the peacock to
swagger in the sun and flaunt the splendour of his train, the instinct
that makes the tiger-moth show the magnificence of his damask wing, and
also makes the lion erect the horrors of his cloudy mane and paw proudly
before his tawny mate. We are all alike in essentials, and Diogenes with
his dirty clouts was only a perverted brother of Prince Florizel with
his peach-coloured coat and snowy ruffles. I intend to handle the
subject of dandies and their nature from a deeply philosophic
starting-point, for, like Carlyle, I recognize the vast significance of
the questions involved in the philosophy of clothes. Let no flippant
individual venture on a jeer, for I am in dead earnest. A mocking critic
may point to the Bond Street lounger and ask, "What are the net use and
purport of that being's existence? Look at his suffering frame! His
linen stock almost decapitates him, his boots appear to hail from the
chambers of the Inquisition, every garment tends to confine his muscles
and dwarf his bodily powers; yet he chooses to smile in his torments
and pretends to luxuriate in life.
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