XII. Avoid all excess in your costume. A gentleman will never caricature his person like a singe fop in modern farce. A wealthy man can afford to appear plain and neat , a poor man sometimes is compelled to dress rather extravagantly, lest the suspicion of his poverty should arouse the venom of his creditors. Some persons look genteel in a well worn coat and napless beaver , others appear grossièrement in the best broad cloth fabrications and correct etceteras , a man, too, may look very Broadwayish amongst the loafers of the Five Points, who would appear rather Five Pointish amongst the swells in Broadway.

Dandyism is fit only for free niggers. An outrageous and useless peculiarity in the shape or color of your coat or hat, is an insult to the good sense of the community at large. A great display of brooches, breast pins, rings, and chains, is fit only for jeweller’s shopmen, blacklegs, and foreign swindlers. A gentleman should paint his nose pea green in preference to toting trinkets as a mark of respectability. The Spartans enacted sumptuary laws against the excessive use of jewellery. None but courtezans were allowed to wear golden ornaments, under pain of death; and one of the Seleucidae decreed that no lady should walk the streets with more than one servant in attendance, unless she were helplessly drunk – or wear jewels of any sort, under pain of being considered infamous.

Quoted from: “Experiences of Modern Philosopher. Dans les petites boîtes les bons onguens. Lesson the Second.” In: Burton’s Gentleman’s Magazine and American Monthly. Vol. 1, No. 2, August 1837.