So far for the heroic vein.  The Clothes Philosopher whose huge burst of literary horse-laughter was levelled at the dandy does not always confine himself to indirect scoffing; here is a plain statement—­“First, touching dandies, let us consider with some scientific strictness what a dandy specially is.  A dandy is a clothes-wearing man, a man whose trade office, and existence consist in the wearing of clothes.  Every faculty of his soul, spirit, purse, and person is heroically consecrated to this one object—­the wearing of clothes wisely and well; so that, as others dress to live, he lives to dress.  The all-importance of clothes has sprung upon the intellect of the dandy without effort, like an instinct of genius; he is inspired with cloth—­a poet of cloth.  Like a generous creative enthusiast, he fearlessly makes his idea an action—­shows himself in peculiar guise to mankind, walks forth a witness and living martyr to the eternal worth of clothes.  We called him a poet; is not his body the (stuffed) parchment-skin whereon he writes, with cunning Huddersfield dyes, a sonnet to his mistress’s eyebrow?”

This is very witty and very trenchant in allusion, but I am obliged to say seriously that Carlyle by no means reached the root of the matter.  The mere tailor’s dummy is deplorable, despicable, detestable, but a real man is none the worse if he gives way to the imperious human desire for adornment, and some of the men who have made permanent marks on the world’s face have been of the tribe whom our Scotchman satirised.  I have known sensible young men turned into perfectly objectionable slovens by reading Carlyle; they thought they rendered a tribute to their master’s genius by making themselves look disreputable, and they found allies to applaud them.  One youth of a poetic turn saw that the sage let his hair fall over his forehead in a tangled mass.  Now this young man had very nice wavy hair, which naturally fell back in a sweep, but he devoted himself with an industry worthy of a much better cause to the task of making his hair fall in unkempt style over his brow.  When he succeeded, he looked partly like a Shetland pony, partly like a street-arab; but his own impression was that his wild and ferocious appearance acted as a living rebuke to young men of weaker natures.  If I had to express a blunt opinion, I should say he was a dreadful simpleton.  Every man likes to be attractive in some way in the springtime and hey-day of life; when the blood flushes the veins gaily and the brain is sensitive to joy, then a man glories in looking well.  Why blame him?  The young officer likes to show himself with his troop in gay trappings; the athlete likes to wear garments that set off his frame to advantage; and it is good that this desire for distinction exists, else we should have but a grey and sorry world to live in.  When the pulses beat quietly and life moves on the downward slope, a man relies on more sober attractions, and he ceases to care for that physical adornment which