The Black Robe
by Wilkie Collins
Perhaps women don't have a positive appreciation of what's beautiful in shape and color, or they don't have their own views when talking about fashion laws. It is certain that for at least a thousand years none of them had seen anything gloomy and objectionable in the evening costume of a gentleman from the nineteenth century. The handsome man, in their eyes, is wearing a black jacket and a tough white tie, more seductive, condescending than ever.
