red, yellow ocher, and terra vert.  The skin of a fair person was a gray light red, tinged with green; the color that would brighten and intensify it most was a gray light sea green, tinged with pink—­in other words, its complementary.  A color always subtracted any similar color that might exist in combination near it.  Thus red beside orange altered it to yellow; blue beside pink altered it to cerise.  Hence, if a person was so unfortunate as to have a muddy complexion, the worst color they could wear would be their own complexion’s complementary—­the best would be mud color, for it would clear their complexion.

Passing on to the consideration of form in costume, the lecturer urged that the proper function of dress was to drape the human figure without disguising or burlesquing it.  An illustration of Miss Mary Anderson, attired in a Greek dress as Parthenia, was exhibited, and the lecturer observed that while the dress once worn by Greek women was unequaled for elegance, Greek women were not in the habit of tying their skirts in knots round the knees, and the nervous pose of the toes suggested a more habitual acquaintance with shoes and stockings.

An enlargement from a drawing by Walter Crane was shown as illustrating the principles of artistic and natural costume—­costume which permitted the waist to be the normal size, and allowed the drapery to fall in natural folds—­costume which knew nothing of pleats and flounces, stays and “improvers”—­costume which was very symbolization and embodiment of womanly grace and modesty.

A life-sized enlargement of a fashion plate from Myra’s Journal, dated June 1, 1882, was next shown.  The circumference of the waist was but 123/4 in., involving an utter exclusion of the liver from that part of the organization, and the attitude was worthy of a costume which was the ne plus ultra of formal ugliness.

Having shown another and equally unbecoming costume, selected from a recent issue by an Oxford Street firm, the lecturer asked, Why did women think small waists beautiful?  Was it because big-waisted women were so frequently fat and forty, old and ugly?  A young girl had no waist, and did not need stays.  As the figure matured the hips developed, and it was this development which formed the waist.  The slightest artificial compression of the waist destroyed the line of beauty.  Therefore, the grown woman should never wear stays, and, since they tended to weaken the muscles of the back, the aged and weak should not adopt them.  A waist really too large was less ungraceful than a waist too small.  Dress was designed partly for warmth and partly for adornment.  As the uses were distinct, the garments should be so.  A close-fitting inner garment should supply all requisite warmth, and the outer dress should be as thin as possible, that it might drape itself into natural folds.  Velvet, from its texture, was ill adapted for this.  When worn, it should be in close fitting garments, and in dark colors only.  It was most effective when black.