and more enforced by this most popular authority, that all real ugliness in either sex means some kind of hardness of heart, or vulgarity of education. The ugliest man, for all in all, in "Punch" is Sir Gorgius Midas,-the ugliest women, those who are unwilling to be old. Generally speaking indeed, "Punch" is cruel to women above a certain age; but this is the expression of a real truth in modern England, that the ordinary habits of life and modes of education produce great plainness of mind in middle-aged women.

I recollect three examples in the course of only the last four or five months of railway travelling. The most interesting and curious one was a young woman evidently of good mercantile position, who came into the carriage with her brother out of one of the manufacturing districts. Both of them gave me the idea of being amiable in disposition, and fairly clever, perhaps a little above the average in natural talent; while the sister had good features, and was not much over thirty. But the face was fixed in an iron hardness, and keenly active incapacity of any deep feeling or subtle thought, which pained me almost as much as a physical disease would have done; and it was an extreme relief to me when she left the carriage. Another type, pure cockney, got in one day at Paddington, a girl of the lower middle class, round-headed, and with the most profound and sullen expression of discontent, complicated with ill-temper, that I ever

saw on human features:-I could not at first be certain how far this expression was innate, and how far superinduced; but she presently answered the question by tearing open the paper she had bought, with the edge of her hand, into jags half an inch deep, all the way across.

The third, a far more common type, was of selfpossessed and all-engrossing selfishness, complicated with stupidity;-a middle-aged woman with a novel, who put up her window and pulled down both blinds (side and central) the moment she got in, and read her novel till she fell asleep over it: presenting in that condition one of the most stolidly disagreeable countenances which could be shaped out of organic clay.

In both these latter cases, the offensiveness of feature implied, for one thing, a constant vexation, and diffused agony or misery, endured through every moment of conscious life, together with total dulness of sensation respecting delightful and beautiful things; the opposite state of life, under blessing, being represented by the Venice-imagined beauty of St. Ursula, in whose countenance what beauty there may be found (I have known several people who saw none, and indeed Carpaccio has gifted her with no dazzling comeliness) depends mainly on the opposite character of diffused joy, and ecstasy in peace.

And in places far too many to indicate, both of Fors and my Oxford lectures, I have spoken again

and again of this radiant expression of cheerfulness, as a primal element of Beauty, quoting Chaucer largely on the matter; and clinching all, somewhere, (I can't look for the place now,) by saying that the wickedness of any nation might be briefly measured by observing how far it had made its girls miserable.

I meant this quality of cheerfulness to be included above, in the word "well-bred," meaning original purity of race (Chaucer's "debonnaireté ") disciplined in courtesy, and the exercises which develop animal power and spirit. I do not in the least mean to limit the word to aristocratic birth and education. Gotthelf's Swiss heroine, Freneli, to whom I have dedicated, in Proserpina, the pansy of the Wengern Alp, is only a farm-servant; and Scott's Jeanie Deans is of the same type in Scotland. And among virtuous nations, or the portions of them who remain virtuous, as the Tyrolese and Bavarian peasants, the Tuscans, and the mountain. and sea-shore races of France, England, Scotland, and Ireland, almost everybody is "well-bred," and the girlish beauty universal. Here in Coniston. it is almost impossible to meet a child whom it is. not a real sorrow again to lose sight of. So that the second article of St. George's creed, "I believe in the nobleness of human nature," may properly be considered as involving the farther though minor belief in the loveliness of the human form; and in my next course of work at Oxford, I shall

have occasion to insist at some length on the reality and frequency of beauty in ordinary life, as it has been shown us by the popular art of our own day. This frequency of it, however, supposing we admit the fact, in no wise diminishes the burden to be sustained by girls who are conscious of possessing less than these ordinary claims to admiration; nor am I in the least minded to recommend the redemption of their loneliness by any more than common effort to be good or wise. On the contrary, the prettier a girl is, the more it becomes her duty to try to be good; and little can be hoped of attempts to cultivate the understanding, which have only been provoked by a jealous vanity. The real and effective sources of consolation will be found in the quite opposite direction, of self-forgetfulness;-in the cultivation of sympathy with others, and in turning the attention and the heart to the daily pleasures open to every young creature born into this marvellous universe. The landscape of the lover's journey may indeed be invested with æthereal colours, and his steps be measured to heavenly tunes unheard of other ears; but there is no sense, because these selfish and temporary raptures are denied to us, in refusing to see the sunshine on the river, or hear the lark's song in the sky. To some of my young readers, the saying may seem a hard one; but they may rest assured that the safest and purest joys of human life rebuke the violence of its

passions; that they are obtainable without anxiety, and memorable without regret.-F. C., Letter 91.

110. DRESS. The man and woman are meant by God to be perfectly noble and beautiful in each other's eyes. That dress is right which makes them so. The best dress is that which is beautiful in the eyes of noble and wise persons.

Right dress is therefore that which is fit for the station in life, and the work to be done in it; and which is otherwise graceful-becoming-lasting -healthful-and easy; on occasion, splendid; always as beautiful as possible.

Right dress is therefore strong-simpleradiantly clean-carefully put on-carefully kept.

Cheap dress, bought for cheapness' sake, and costly dress bought for costliness' sake, are both abominations. Right dress is bought for its worth, and at its worth; and bought only when wanted.

Beautiful dress is chiefly beautiful in colourin harmony of parts, and in mode of putting on and wearing. Rightness of mind is in nothing more shown than in the mode of wearing simple dress.

Ornamentation involving design, such as embroidery, etc., produced solely by industry of hand, is highly desirable in the state dresses of all classes, down to the lowest peasantry.