First impressions are apt to be permanent; it is therefore
of importance that they should be favorable. The dress of an individual is that
circumstance from which you first form your opinion of him. It is even more
prominent than manner; it is indeed the only thing which is remarked in a
casual encounter, or during the first interview. It, therefore, should be the
first care.
What style is to our thoughts, dress is to our persons. It
may supply the place of more solid qualities, and without it the most solid are
of little avail. Numbers have owed their elevation to their attention to the
toilet. Place, fortune, marriage have all been lost by neglecting it.
Your dress should always be consistent with your age and
your natural exterior. That which looks outer, on one man, will be agreeable on
another. As success in this respect depends almost entirely upon particular
circumstances and personal peculiarities, it is impossible to give general
directions of much importance. We can only point out the field for study and
research; it belongs to each one's own genius and industry to deduce the
results. However ugly you may be, rest assured that there is some style of
habiliment which will make you passable.
If, for example, you have a stain upon your cheek which
rivals in brilliancy the best Chateau-Margout; or, are afflicted with a nose
whose lustre dims the ruby, you may employ such hues of dress, that the eye,
instead of being shocked by the strangeness of the defect, will be charmed by
the graceful harmony of the colours. Every one cannot indeed be an Adonis, but
it is his own fault if he is an Esop.
Almost every defect of face may be concealed by a judicious
use and arrangement of hair. Take care, however, that your hair be not of one
colour and your whiskers of another; and let your wig be large enough to cover
the whole of your red or white hair. It is evident, therefore, that though a
man may be ugly, there is no necessity for his being shocking.
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