A little child whose head is piled with laces and ribbons, whose dress is a mass of embroidery, and who is booted and gloved and otherwise oppressed by parental vanity and extravagance, is not picturesque, any further than its face goes. The portrait painter will cling to the face and let the clothes alone. All this I trickery of art, brought into comparison or contrast with the simple beauty of nature, is offensive. Yet a little beggar boy, with an old straw hat on, and with bare, brown feet, and a burnt shoulder which his torn shirt refuses to cover, would be a painter's joy. Here would be drapery that he would delight to paint, simply because there would be no formality about it. It is impossible for us to know how ridiculous a dress-coat is until we see it in a statue. We are obliged to put all our modern sages and heroes into togas and blankets and long cloaks in order to make them presentable to posterity. We never find groups of accordant, striking facts like these--and their number could be largely increased--without finding that they are all strung together by an important law. All life demands room and freedom--freedom to manifest itself in every way, according to the law of its being and the range of its circumstances. All life is individual and characteristic, and comes reluctantly under the sway of outside forces. It is not natural to be proper, or to love propriety. In saying this I simply mean that it is against nature to bring one's individuality under the curbing and controlling hands of others--to make the notions of the world the law and limit of one's liberty, and to square every word and every act by arbitrary rules imposed by cliques and customs. A man who has been clipped in all his puttings-forth, and modelled by outside hands and outside influences, until it is apparent that he is governed from without rather than from within, is just as unnatural an object as a tree that has been clipped and tied and bent until its top has grown into the form of a cube. Thus the reason why Miss Nancy is not popular, and why the women refuse to delight in him, is, that he is not his own master--that he has, in himself, no independent life. It is not proper that he give utterance to his impulses;--so he suppresses them. It is not proper that he frankly reveal the emotions of his heart; so he conceals them. It is not proper that he enter enthusiastically into any work or any pleasure; so he is a constant check to the enthusiasm of others. It is not proper that he speak the words that spring to his lips when his weak sensibilities are touched; so he studies his language, and shapes his phrases to the accepted models. Thus is he shortened in on every side, until his individuality is all gone, and the humanity in him becomes as characterless as its expression. Every utterance of his life is made with a well-measured reference to certain standards to which he is an acknowledged slave.