A sweet disorder in the dress
Kindles in clothes a wantonness
A lawn about the shoulders thrown
Into a fine distraction;

Strong sun, that bleach
The curtains of my room, can you not render
Colourless this dress I wear? — This violent plaid
Of purple angers and red shames; the yellow stripe
Of thin but valid treacheries; the flashy green of kind deeds done
Through indolence, high judgments given in haste;
The recurring checker of the serious breach of taste?

Miss Brooke had that kind of beauty which seems to be thrown into relief by poor dress.

Faire Ladies, that to loue captiued arre,
And chaste desires do nourish in your mind,
Let not her fault your sweet affections marre,
Ne blot the bounty of all womankind;
'Mongst thousands good one wanton Dame to find:
Emongst the Roses grow some wicked weeds;
For this was not to loue, but lust inclind;
For loue does alwayes bring forth bounteous deeds,
And in each gentle hart desire of honour breeds.

She was a curious woman, whose dresses always looked as if they had been designed in a rage and put on in a tempest. She was usually in love with somebody, and, as her passion was never returned, she had kept all her illusions. She tried to look picturesque, but only succeeded in being untidy.

A gaudy dress and gentle air May slightly touch the heart; But it’s innocence and modesty That polishes the dart.

Though recognition's been delayed by its circuitous construction, now the pattern, long concealed, emerges into view. Is it not fine? Is it not simple, and elegant, and severe? How strange, after the long exacting toil of preparation, it takes only the slightest effort and less thought to send this brief, elaborate amusement on its breathless, hurtling race. The merest touch, no more, and everything falls into place. The pieces can't perceive as we the mischief their arrangement tempts. Those stolid law-abiding queues, so pregnant with catastrophe. Insensible before the wave so soon released by callous fate. Affected most, they understand the least, and understanding, when it comes, invariably arrives too late.

Elaborate is the courtliness
of the imagination, on one sore knee
before beauty.

What a strange power there is in clothing.

There is no exquisite beauty… without some strangeness in the proportion.

That which is not slightly distorted lacks sensible appeal: from which it follows that irregularity - that is to say, the unexpected, surprise and astonishment, are an essential part and characteristic of beauty.

Creative minds are uneven, and the best of fabrics have their dull spots.

...Where we, even where we mean
To mend her we end her,
When we hew or delve:
After-comers cannot guess the beauty been.
Ten or twelve, only ten or twelve
Strokes of havoc únselve
The sweet especial scene,
Rural scene, a rural scene,
Sweet especial rural scene.

Romance once more, thinks Dickson . That which has graced the slim throats of princesses in far-away Courts now adorns an elderly matron in a semi-detached villa; the jewels of the wild Nausicaa have fallen to the housewife Penelope. Mrs. McCunn preens herself before the glass.
“I call it very genteel,” she says. “Real stylish. It might be worn by a queen.”
“I wouldn’t say but it has,” says Dickson.