REASONS WHY FASHIONS ARE FOLLOWED--GAY CLOTHES SEEN WHEN PERIODS OF DEPRESSION ARE OVER--CONDEMNATION OF FASHIONS BY THE CLERGY--QUAKERS--SUMPTUARY LAWS--THE KILLING OF FASHIONS The rise and fall of fashions is a matter that affects every nation and practically every individual, for savages are quite as much harassed and tortured by them as any civilized people are. Fashions are perpetuated, as Herbert Spencer has pointed out, by imitation, and from two motives which are widely divergent. It may be prompted by reverence for the one imitated, on the one hand, or by a desire to assert equality with him. In the beginning, no doubt fashions arose with an idea to improve upon nature, though notions as to ideals of beauty must have been hazy in many cases. Fashions have been advanced as evidence in support of the proverb that there is nothing new under the sun, and the way in which some of them come round again goes a very long way to prove it in the case of clothes. Luckily some enormities seem to have died out, but in the light of past history we can never feel quite safe, and we never know, on the other hand, where some slight change which in itself seems novel may not lead us to ridiculous extremes. Of course, many garments and styles are importations from other countries. The pelisse came from Persia at the time of the Crusaders, just as the kimono was brought in recent times from Japan. Fads and peculiarities and even deformities of Royalty, as we saw in the case of the peruke, have introduced fashions. The crinoline, according to all accounts, was first devised to hide the shape of a princess. Perhaps no other contrivance has brought more nuisance in its train or had more ridicule poured upon it; but it is only one instance of many fashions that have been carried to excess. It is true, as we shall have occasion to mention, that in earlier times laws were enacted to restrict the size of ruffs and the length of the toes of shoes, but often with little effect, and when shape and size did not occupy attention, the costliness of the garment caused restrictions to be made, while the clergy seem never to have ceased from inveighing against the follies of fashions. In the twelfth century the devil was represented by an old illustrator in the costume of a fine lady with the long hanging sleeves and tightly laced bodice of the time. A hundred years later English preachers took exception to laced openings through which ladies showed their costly under-linen, and dignified them with the name of "gates of hell." In the twentieth century ministers in the United States have wasted their time in scolding the lady members of their congregations for wearing fancy stockings. Sometimes, on the other hand, the clergy themselves have laid themselves open to criticism with regard to the gorgeousness of their apparel. [Illustration: FIG. 168.--A Merveilleuse (after A. Robida).]