For instance, "When the young
European emigrant, after a summer's labor puts on for the first time a
new coat, he puts on much more. His good and becoming clothes put him on
thinking that he must behave like people who are so dressed; and
silently and steadily his behavior mends." Of course, there is an
uplifting truth in George Herbert's maxim, "This coat with my discretion
will be brave," yet, I am inclined to think that the majority of men who
will stop to consider will agree with Emerson, who says, "If a man has
not firm nerves and has keen sensibility, it is perhaps a wise economy
to go to a good shop and dress himself irreproachably. He can then
dismiss all care from his mind, and may easily find that performance an
addition of confidence, a fortification that turns the scale in social
encounters, and allows him to go gayly into conversations where else he
had been dry and embarrassed. I am not ignorant,--I have heard with
admiring submission the experience of the lady who declared 'that the
sense of being perfectly well dressed gives a feeling of inward
tranquillity which religion is powerless to bestow.'"
A popular clothier in New York, understanding this trait of his
fellow-men, voices this same sentiment in his advertisement in this
succinct way: "Seriously now. Have you ever stopped to think that if you
wear good clothing it adds much to that independent, easy feeling you
should have when you come in contact with other men?"
I think it was Lord Chesterfield who said: "A man is received according
to his appearance, and dismissed according to his merits.
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