He freely admitted to himself that he was
a worthless person but the fact did not disturb him. Having been
born with a certain order of brain it observed and worked in spite
of him, thereby adding flavour and interest to existence. But that
was all.
It cannot be said that as the years passed he quite enjoyed the
fact that he knew he was rarely spoken of to a stranger without
its being mentioned that he was the most perfectly dressed man in
London. He rather detested the idea though he was aware that the
truth was unimpeachable. The perfection of his accompaniments had
arisen in his youth from a secret feeling for fitness and harmony.
Texture and colour gave him almost abnormal pleasure. His expression
of this as a masculine creature had its limits which resulted in
a concentration on perfection. Even at five-and-twenty however he
had never been called a dandy and even at five-and-forty no one
had as yet hinted at Beau Brummel though by that time men as well
as women frequently described to each other the cut and colour
of the garments he wore, and tailors besought him to honour them
with crumbs of his patronage in the ambitious hope that they might
mention him as a client. And the simple fact that he appeared in
a certain colour or cut set it at once on its way to become a
fashion to be seized upon, worn and exaggerated until it was
dropped suddenly by its originator and lost in the oblivion of
cheap imitations and cheap tailor shops.
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