Wholly aside from aesthetic and moral considerations, fashion is an economic absurdity, and there is little to be said in its favor. Nevertheless, we can appreciate the wisdom in Gina Lombroso'sbelief the enormous stress which women lay on everything pertaining 1with clothes and the art of personal adornment is connected with the 2tendency to crystallize sentiment into an object. Woman symbolizes every important event in her life by a special dress; and a jewel or abeautiful gown means to a woman that an official decoration means to 3a man. The temptation of dress is the last step in the ceremony to the novice 4has to submit before entering the cloister. The memory of the gown which she might have worn was the strongest temptation that assailed St.Catherine before she took her solemn vows—a gown, embroidering 5with gold and stars, like that her sisters had worn, which her 6grandchildren would have gazed with eyes filled with wonder and 7admiration... If a woman's clothes cost the family and society a little time,money and activity, they allow woman, independent in lies and 8calumnies, to triumph and come to the fore outside of man's worldand competition. They allow woman to satisfy with her desire to be 9the first in the most varied fields by giving her the illusion that she isthe first, and at the same time enable her rival to have the same 10illusion. Clothes absorb some of woman's activity which might otherwise be diverted to more or less worth-while ends; they give woman real satisfaction.