——­What is that, Sir?—­said the divinity-student.

——­That they have pluck.  I find that lies at the bottom of all true dandyism.  A little boy dressed up very fine, who puts his finger in his mouth and takes to crying, if other boys make fun of him, looks very silly.  But if he turns red in the face and knotty in the fists, and makes an example of the biggest of his assailants, throwing off his fine Leghorn and his thickly-buttoned jacket, if necessary, to consummate the act of justice, his small toggery takes on the splendors of the crested helmet that frightened Astyanax.  You remember that the Duke said his dandy officers were his best officers.  The “Sunday blood,” the super-superb sartorial equestrian of our annual Fast-day, is not imposing or dangerous.  But such fellows as Brummel and D’Orsay and Byron are not to be snubbed quite so easily.  Look out for “la main de fer sous le gant de velours” (which I printed in English the other day without quotation-marks, thinking whether any scarabaeus criticus would add this to his globe and roll in glory with it into the newspapers,—­which he didn’t do it, in the charming pleonasm of the London language, and therefore I claim the sole merit of exposing the same).  A good many powerful and dangerous people have had a decided dash of dandyism about them.  There was Alcibiades, the “curled son of Clinias,” an accomplished young man, but what would be called a “swell” in these days.  There was Aristoteles, a very distinguished writer, of whom you have heard,—­a philosopher, in short, whom it took centuries to learn, centuries to unlearn, and is now going to take a generation or more to learn over again.  Regular dandy, he was.  So was Marcus Antonius:  and though he lost his game, he played for big stakes, and it wasn’t his dandyism that spoiled his chance.  Petrarca was not to be despised as a scholar or a poet, but he was one of the same sort.  So was Sir Humphrey Davy; so was Lord Palmerston, formerly, if I am not forgetful.  Yes,—­a dandy is good for something as such; and dandies such as I was just speaking of have rocked this planet like a cradle,—­aye, and left it swinging to this day.—­Still, if I were you, I wouldn’t go to the tailor’s, on the strength of these remarks, and run up a long bill which will render pockets a superfluity in your next suit. Elegans “nascitur, non fit.” A man is born a dandy, as he is born a poet.  There are heads that can’t wear hats; there are necks that can’t fit cravats; there are jaws that can’t fill out collars—­(Willis touched this last point in one of his earlier ambrotypes, if I remember rightly); there are tournures nothing can humanize, and movements nothing can subdue to the gracious suavity or elegant languor or stately serenity which belong to different styles of dandyism.