+Attractive personal appearance.+--Clothes that fit, colors that match,
cosy houses and cheery rooms cost little more, except in thought and
attention, than ill-fitting and unbecoming garments and gloomy and
unsightly dwellings. Attractiveness of dress, surroundings, and personal
appearance is a duty; because it gives free exercise to our higher and
nobler sentiments; elevates and enlarges our lives; while discomfort and
repulsiveness in these things lower our standards, and drive us to the
baser elements of our nature in search of cheap forms of self-indulgence
to take the place of that natural delight in attractive dress and
surroundings which has been repressed. Both to ourselves and to our
friends we owe as much attractiveness of personal surroundings and
personal appearance as a reasonable amount of thought and effort and
expenditure can secure.
THE VIRTUE.
+Neatness inexpensive and its absence inexcusable.+--No one is so poor
that he cannot afford to be neat. No one is so rich that he can afford
to be slovenly. Neatness is a virtue, or manly quality; because it keeps
the things we wear and have about us under our control, and compels them
to express our will and purpose.
THE REWARD.
+Dress an indication of the worth of the wearer.+--Neatness of dress and
personal appearance indicates that there is some regard for decency and
propriety, some love of order and beauty, some strength of will and
purpose inside the garments. If dress is the most superficial aspect of
a person, it is at the same time the most obvious one. Our first
impression of people is gained from their general appearance, of which
dress is one of the most important features.
Consequently dress goes far to determine the estimate people place upon
us. Fuller acquaintance may compel a revision of these original
impressions. First impressions, however, often decide our fate with
people whose respect and good-will is valuable to us. Important
positions are often won or lost through attention or neglect in these
matters.
THE TEMPTATION.
+Dress has its snares.+--We are tempted to care, not for attractiveness
in itself, but for the satisfaction of thinking, and having others
think, how fine we look. Worse still, we are tempted to try to look not
as well as we can, but better than somebody else; and by this
combination of rivalry with vanity we get the most contemptible and
pitiable level to which perversity in dress can bring us. There is no
end to the ridiculous and injurious absurdities to which this hollow
vanity will lead those who are silly enough to yield to its demands.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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