But there is another story to be told. Excessive fashion is to be
charged with many of the worst evils of society, and its path has
often been strewn with the bodies of the slain.
It has often set up a false standard by which people are to be
judged. Our common sense, as well as all the divine intimations on the
subject, teach us that people ought to be esteemed according to their
individual and moral attainments. The man who has the most nobility
of soul should be first, and he who has the least of such qualities
should stand last. No crest, or shield, or escutcheon, can indicate
one's moral peerage. Titles of duke, lord, esquire, earl, viscount,
or patrician, ought not to raise one into the first rank. Some of
the meanest men I have ever known had at the end of their name D.D.,
LL.D., and F.R.S. Truth, honor, charity, heroism, self-sacrifice,
should win highest favor; but inordinate fashion says--"Count not a
woman's virtues; count her rings;" "Look not at the contour of the
head, but see the way she combs her hair;" "Ask not what noble deeds
have been accomplished by that man's hand; but is it white and soft?"
Ask not what good sense was in her conversation, but "in what was she
dressed.
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