show her naked foot; "besides, woman is a tender thing, easily hurt." She ought to wear simple white shoes, except on a journey, and then her shoes should be greased. Our saintly censor devotes an indignant chapter to "the stones which silly women wear fastened to chains and set in necklaces;" and he compares the eagerness with which they rush after glittering jewelry to the senseless attraction which draws children to a blazing fire. He quotes from Aristophanes a whole catalogue of female ornaments: "Snoods, fillets, natron, and steel; Pumice-stone, band, back-band, Back-veil, paint, necklaces, Paints for the eyes, soft garment, _hair-net_, [Footnote 22] Girdle, shawl, fine purple border, Long robe, tunic, Barathrum, round tunic, Ear-pendants, jewelry, ear-rings, Mallow-colored cluster-shaped anklets, Buckles, clasps, necklets, Fetters, seals, chains, rings, powders, Bosses, bands, Sardian stones, Fans, helicters." [Footnote 22: Is it possible that _waterfalls_ were worn in those days?] And he cries out, wearied with the enumeration: "I wonder how those who bear such a burden are not worried to death. O foolish trouble! O silly craze for display!" And of what use is it all? It is nothing but art contending against nature, falsehood struggling against truth. If a woman is ugly, she only makes her ugliness more conspicuous by decking herself out with meretricious ornaments. {101} Besides, the custom of "applying things unsuitable to the body as if they were suitable, begets a practice of lying and a habit of falsehood." The sight of an over-dressed woman seems to have affected St. Clement very much as a worthless picture in an elegant frame. "The body of one of these ladies," he exclaims, "would never fetch more than one hundred and fifty dollars; but you may see her wearing a dress that cost _two hundred and fifty thousand._" We complain of the extravagance of modern belles; but, do they ever spend such enormous sums as that on a single dress? Alexandria, we imagine, must bear away the palm from Newport and Saratoga. There were particular fashions in jewelry and ornament toward which the saint had a special dislike. Bracelets in the form of a serpent, he calls the manifest badges of the evil one. Golden chains and necklaces are nothing better than fetters. Earrings and ear-drops he forbids as contrary to nature, and he beseeches his female hearers not to have their ears pierced. If you pierce your ears, he says, why not have rings in your noses also? A signet-ring may be worn on the finger, because it is useful for sealing; but no good Christian ought to wear rings for mere ornament. Yet he makes one curious exception to this rule. If a woman have, unfortunately, a dissipated husband, she may adorn herself as much as she can, for the purpose of keeping him at home.