Essays (e-book) (used book) | Herbert Spencer | bookbook.eu

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Excerpt from Essays: Moral, Political and Aesthetic

If it be a fact that men of revolutionary aims in politics or religion, are commonly revolutionists in custom also, it is not less a fact that those whose Office it is to uphold established arrangements in State and Church, are also those who most adhere to the social forms and Observances bequeathed to us by past generations. Practices elsewhere extinct still linger about the head quarters of government. The monarch still gives assent to Acts of Parliament in the old French of the Normans; and Norman French terms are still used in law. Wigs, such as those we see depicted in old portraits, may yet be found on the heads of judges and barristers. The Beefeaters at the Tower wear the costume of Henry vilth's body-guard. The University dress of the present year varies but little from that worn soon after the Reformation. The claret-coloured coat, knee-breeches, lace shirt-frills, white silk stockings, and buckled shoes, which once formed the usual attire of a gentleman, still survive as the courtodress. And it need scarcely be said that at levees and drawing-rooms, the ceremonies are pre scribed with an exactness, and enforced with a rigour, not elsewhere to be found.