costumes, a pair of gloves badly chosen will mar the effect of the whole.  Imagine a lady dressed in mauve silk, with a mauve bonnet, and emerald green kid gloves! or vice versa, in green silk, with a bonnet to match, and mauve-coloured gloves!  Dark green, dark mauve, or plum coloured, dark salmon, or dark yellow gloves, are enough to spoil the most faultless costume; because they interrupt the harmony of colour; like the one string of a musical instrument, which, being out of tune, creates a discord throughout all the rest.

Variety in colour is another great defect in dress, quite apart from the question of their harmony.  A multiplicity of colours, though not in themselves inharmonious, is never pleasing.  It fatigues the eye, which cannot find any repose where it is disturbed by so many colours.  A bonnet of one colour, a gown of another, with trimmings of a third, a mantle of a fourth, and a parasol of a fifth colour, can never form a costume that will please the eye.  It is laid to the charge of English people, that they are especially fond of this kind of dress, whereas a French woman will dress much more quietly, though, by no means, less expensively; but in her choice of colours she will use very few, and those well assorted.  For instance, a grey gown and a white bonnet, relieved by a black lace shawl or velvet mantle, indicate a refinement which may be looked in vain where the colours of the rainbow prevail.  Among well-dressed persons it will be found that quiet colours are always preferred.  Whatever is gaudy is offensive, and the use of many colours constitutes gaudiness.  Birds of gay plumage are sometimes brought forward to sanction the use of many bright colours.  They are indeed worthy of all admiration; so also are flowers, in which we find the most beautiful assortment of colours; but nature has shaded and blended them together with such exquisite skill and delicacy, that they are placed far beyond the reach of all human art; and we think they are, to use the mildest terms, both bold and unwise who attempt to reproduce in their own persons, with the aid of silks or satins, the marvellous effect of colours with which nature abounds.  And yet it may be observed in nature, how gay colours are neutralized by their accessories; how the greens vary in tone and tint according to the blossoms which they surround.  The infinite shades and depths of colour with which nature is filled render it impossible for anyone to attempt to imitate it beyond a certain point of general harmony.  This is now more generally understood than it used to be; but still we often stumble across some glaring instance in which a gaudy eye and taste have been allowed to run riot, and the result has been the reproduction of something not very unlike a bed of tulips.