As it regards dress, every individual will necessarily exhibit, to a greater or less extent, the degree in which taste has been cultivated. A person of real refinement of taste will always have the dress consistent with the circumstances of fortune, the relative rank in life, the station and character, the hour of the day, the particular pursuit or profession, and the period of life. If a person is dressed with a richness and elegance which fortune does not warrant, if the dress is either inferior or superior to that of others of the same rank and station, if it is unfitted to the hour or the pursuit, if youth puts on the grave dress of age, or age assumes the bright colors and ornaments of youth, in all these cases the eye of taste is offended. In the adaptation of colors to complexions, and the style of dress to the particular form of the person; in avoiding the extremes of fashion, the excesses of ornament, and all approaches to immodesty--in all these respects a good taste can be displayed in dress, and thus charm us in every-day life. A person of cultivated taste, in all that relates to the little arrangements of domestic life, the ornaments of the exterior and interior of a dwelling, the pursuits of hours of relaxation and amusement, the modes of social intercourse, the nice perception of proprieties in habits, manners, modes of address, and the thousand little every-day incidents of life, will throw an undefined and nameless charm around, like the soft light of heaven, that, without dazzling, perpetually cheers. _Emotions of the Ludicrous._ There is a certain class of feelings called _emotions of the ludicrous_, which are the causes of laughter. These are generally pleasurable in their nature, though there are times when the emotions which produce laughter are painful. Emotions of this kind are usually caused by the sudden union of certain ideas in our conceptions when the laws of association appear to be violated. Such ideas are called incongruous, because, according to the ordinary experience of our minds, they would not naturally have appeared together. In order to awaken this emotion, it is not only necessary that the mind should discover ideas united which have not ordinarily been so in past experience, but those which are united in direct _opposition_ to the laws of association. Thus, if there has been a union of certain qualities in an object which have uniformly tended to produce emotions of a dignified and solemn kind, and some particular is pointed out which is mean, little, or low, the unexpected incongruity occasions mirth.