that of dress, and were without rules to guide us.  So long as ladies had to choose between Paris fashions and those of Piccadilly Hall, they would, he felt sure, choose the former.  Let it be shown that the substitute was both sanitary and beautiful, capable of an infinite variety in color and in form—­in colors and forms which never violated art principle, and in which the wearer, and not some Paris liner, could exercise her taste, and the day would have been gained.  This was the task he had set himself to formulate, and so doing he should divide his subject in two—­Color and Form.

In color it was desirable to distinguish carefully between the meaning of shade, tint, and hue.  It was amazing that a cultured nation like the English should be so generally ignorant of the laws of color harmony.  We were nicely critical of music, yet in color were constantly committing the gravest solecisms.  He did not think there were seventeen interiors in London that the educated eye could wander over without pain.  Yet what knowledge was so useful?  We were not competent to buy a picture, choose a dress, or furnish a house without a knowledge of color harmony, to say nothing of the facility such knowledge gave in all kinds of painting on porcelain, art needlework, and a hundred occupations.

An important consideration in choosing colors for dress was the effect they would have in juxtaposition.  Primary colors should be worn in dark shades; dark red and dark yellow, or as it was commonly called, olive green, went well together; but a dress of full red or yellow would be painful to behold.  The rule for full primaries was, employ them sparingly, and contrast them only with black or gray.  He might notice in passing that when people dressed in gray or black the entire dress was usually of the one color unrelieved.  Yet here they had a background that would lend beauty to any color placed upon it.

Another safe rule was never to place together colors differing widely in hue.  The eye experienced a difficulty in accommodating itself to sudden changes, and a species of color discord was the consequence.  But if the colors, even though primaries, were of some very dark or very light shade, they become harmonious.  All very dark shades of color went well with black and with each other, and all very light shades went well with white and each other.

A much-vexed question with ladies was, “What will suit my complexion?” The generally received opinion was that the complexion was pink, either light or dark, and colors were chosen accordingly, working dire confusion.  But no one living ever had a pink complexion unless a painted one.  The dolls in the Lowther Arcade were pink, and their pink dresses were in harmony.  No natural complexion whatever was improved by pink; but gray would go with any.  The tendency of gray was to give prominence to the dominant hue in the complexion.  When an artist wished to produce flesh color he mixed white, light