MEN AND THEIR CLOTHES
THE female fashions of to-day are absurd enough; but if anything more absurd than a man's "stove-pipe hat" was ever invented, I would like to see it. Mark its victims, when they remove it from their heads – which they seldom do, the gods know why, unless they are getting into bed; see the red rim across their foreheads, produced by its unwieldy weight, and unnecessary inches up in the air; see them occasionally in the street, giving it a cock backwards, when nobody but apple-women are looking, to observe how quickly a gentleman, by that action, may be made into a rowdy; then see them apply their handkerchiefs to their foreheads, to cool off the heat and the pain, and then with a stoicism worthy of one of Fox's martyrs, replace it, and bear the long agony till they get home. Then what garment that ever woman wore, is more ridiculous than a man's shirt, whether buttoning before or buttoning behind, or disfigured with puerile "studs;" whether the stiff collar stands up like a picket on guard, or lays over, with a necktie to tie it suffocatingly over the jugular vein.
Then mark that abomination – a swallow-tailed coat. Heavens! how ugly the handsomest man may look in it! and woe for the plain men, when they intensify their plainness with it!
Then see the knock-kneed and the crooked-legged advertising their deformity in tight pantaloons; and short, fat, barrel men wearing little boys' cloth caps on their heads! Ah, for every female goose that Fashion makes, I will find you a male mate, even to the wearing of tight corsets!
But, my friends, on one point there's a difference. "When a fashionable lady engages a female servant, she stipulates that she shall wear a cap on her head, and calico on her back, to mark the difference between herself and that servant – without which, I suppose, it would not often be recognizable." When her husband gives a dinner, the male waiters are dressed exactly like himself – in festal white neckties, white gloves, and hideous swallow-tailed coats.
How is this? It must be that the male creature is very secure of his position, socially, mentally, morally, and physically, to permit such presumption – nay, to demand it. Can any philosopher explain to me this mystery? I was "struck 'midships" with the idea at a festal gathering not long since; and turning to my male guide, philosopher, and friend, asked what it meant. His irritating answer to this most proper and natural question was, "Fanny, don't be silly."
I reiterate my remark that men's dress is to the full as absurd in its way as women's, and I am only reconciled to the idea that a man was intended for a human being when I see an athlete of a gymnast, of glorious chest and calves, and splendid muscular arms, skimming the air as gracefully as a bird, and as poetically; then I know how civilization has ruined him! I know, that man if he jumped, and ran, and wrestled, and walked, instead of sitting stupidly in a chair in the house, or creeping into an omnibus when out of it, and smoking and going to sleep in the intervals, would not be obliged to creep into these ugly tailor's padded fashions to hide his deficiencies, but could wear what he chose, knowing that the beautiful outlines of his form would glorify any decent vestment.
I walked several blocks out of my way behind a man, the other day, who positively "stepped off." What a chest he had! what a splendid poise of the head! what a free, jubilant swing of the arm! I hope he will come to New York again some day, for I'm sure he was a stranger to it, for he neither stopped anywhere to take a drink, buy a cigar, nor did he hail an omnibus!
Magnificent giant! I wonder what was his name, and had he a mother. If not – well, it was a pity he shouldn't have.
I wonder what are "good manners"? The question occurred to me the other evening in a place of public amusement. I was one of a dozen or so of ladies, wedged in a row of the usual narrow seats. At every pause in the performance, three gentlemen stepped over the laps of the ladies in that seat, carrying off in their exit, or knocking upon the floor, opera-glasses, fans, scarfs, handkerchiefs, and, almost, the ladies themselves; returning each time wiping their lips, and introducing with them a strong odious smell of tobacco. I respectfully submit to any real gentleman who reads this article, if that is "good manners."
Of course, I know it would be better if all seats at such places could be so arranged that gentlemen need not clean their boots on ladies' laps in order to pass out. But also it would be well if gentlemen took all the sustenance in the way of wine which they needed before starting from home; and if they could also bring their godlike minds, to defer smoking till they could annoy only the one lady, whom they have a legal right to annoy, it would add to the general comfort, as well as their public reputation for gallantry and politeness. Men generally object to going out evenings, "because they are so tired." Why, then, they never embrace the opportunity to sit still when they get there, is an inconsistency which we must place unsolved, on the shelf already so well labelled with them. I might suggest also, that if they will persist in cleaning their boots on our laps, in order to get out these narrow sets of seats, and if they will carry off in their exit our gloves and fans and opera-glasses, and if they will keep on repeating this little pastime all the evening, to say nothing of occasionally crushing our feet out of all shape, I would venture to suggest that they should mitigate the suffering by saying, occasionally, "I beg pardon," or, "Pray excuse me," or by some such little deference acknowledge the infinite bore of their presence.
Failing in this, I propose that each gentleman, on his return, should bring in his hand a peace-offering to the ladies in the seat, of a glass of lemonade and a bit of cake. Why shouldn't we be thirsty too? Mr. Beecher says a woman has a right to – no, I believe he didn't say that, but he ought to have done so; and if he didn't, "fair play is a jewel."
Mr. Smith exclaims, on reading this, "Horrible woman!" because, though a handsome man, he sees himself looking selfish and ugly in the glass I hold up to him. Now, Mr. Smith wouldn't say that, if he should sit down beside me and let me talk to him five minutes. Not he! You see I have him at a great disadvantage, away off at the other end of the city or over to Brooklyn. I could say the very same things to him I have just said on paper, sitting here on my sofa beside me, and that man would go on lying, as men will, to other men's wives' faces, and be so polite and smiling, that his own wife never would know him, if she happened in; and he'd tell me that "what I said was all true, and that men were selfish animals," meaning Tom Jones and Sam Jenkins, and every other man but just himself. Don't I know them?
NOTES FROM PLYMOUTH ROCK
HOW I ever lived so many years in Boston without coming to see Plymouth, is one of the sins of omission for which I am at this present finding doing my best to atone. I trust all of you who are equally guilty, will come as soon as may be to breathe the fine Newport air of the place, and take time to visit its interesting coast, its numerous ponds, its lovely drives through odorous woods, and all the hallowed spots which ought to be dear to the heart of every true American. Don't go to Paris or London till you have been to Plymouth. It were well to "see Niagara" first; but it were better to have gone with me to the "Record Office" this morning, and seen the yellow manuscripts, covered thickly with the small German text-looking handwriting of our Pilgrim Fathers; setting forth, for instance, "the shares they severally held in a cow," in the simple, honest, straightforward manner of the time – one signed by "Myles Standish," who, it seems, having the primitive ambition to own an entire cow, kept buying up the shares of the rest as speedily as his means allowed. I thought of Mr. Bonner's stables, and the thousands of dollars his horses represented, and wondered how he dared to say his catechism! Then I saw their veritable "Charter," kept in a dark cupboard, with a silken curtain drawn across the precious signatures, lest the unscrupulous sunlight, invading this "Holy of Holies," should snatch them from posterity. And then and there was exploded for me the theory that handwriting is indicative of character. Certainly those effeminate, small, beautiful letters gave no sign or token of the moral strength, the rugged persistence of purpose, of the Pilgrim Fathers. Not one modern young lady in a hundred could write so minute and beautiful a hand. They must have had good eyesight in those days, when gas and furnaces were not. Sharp men they were; disguising the very graves of the first little Mayflower band, lest the Indians should take advantage of the reduction of their numbers. The very house I am in bears the name of the first Indian who visited them, – "Samoset." Whether the fair and tender-hearted Rose Standish quailed before the savage owner of this most musical name, I have not learned. I do not hesitate to say, that I should have made for the bushes on his first appearance. It is curious, in walking the streets of Plymouth, to hear the little children calling to each other, in their play, and using the old familiar Mayflower names of hundreds of years ago.
But Pilgrim ancestry does not insure saintliness in all its descendants, as I found upon visiting the county prison. Within its walls was pointed out to me a woman who had poisoned her husband, when sick and helpless on her hands. For thirteen long weary years she had never been outside those walls; and latterly had declined even walking in the little paved yard allowed the prisoners. She was a large, powerfully built woman, with a skin like the parchments I had been looking at in the Record Office drawn tightly over her high cheek-bones. She sat sewing at her grated window as we entered; and when asked "if she were not warm," as the day was very hot, answered petulantly, "No – I am most always cold; there can't be circulation where there's no exercise." Outside was bloom and sunlight, and song of birds, and merry voices, and blue skies, and pleasant hum of labor, and the faint dirge of the sea. She merited her fate, but I turned away from her sick at heart, and thought, were it my case, how questionable were the mercy that abolished hanging for such slow-dropping torture as this.
In the same room with her were three hard-featured women, placed there for violation of the liquor laws. Each in that room had a babe in her arms, or at her knee – poor little innocent victims of maternal misdoing. One baby was moaning with the teething process, so hard to endure and survive, even with all the appliances of out-door air and wholesome surroundings. Its little waxen face showed signs of severe suffering, and for three months more, if the little life were spun out that long, it must remain there – its only amusement rocking the rude box which was allowed for a cradle. The mother answered me roughly enough when I inquired the age of her baby, but God knows I forgive her any bitterness she might feel at the difference that bright day in our respective lots; but could she have read my heart, and seen how I longed to carry her little one out on the grass, and among the flowers, and see it smile, she would have known me for its friend.
I never saw a prison more clean, and neat, and well-ordered; and yet I could not help thinking there should be a nursery there, that the little children of these erring mothers need not be punished with them; but, in the graphic language of the Superintendent, "Its original intention was not a fancy boarding-house."
I wish here to place on record that Plymouth can make good bread. I had begun to fear, so long had I been fed on Cape Ann saleratus, that I might lose the taste of wholesome yeast and flour, just as the "marasmus" denizens of the Five Points learn to dislike pure air. A brief heaven of good city bread in blessed old Boston quite set me up; and its unexpected appearance in Plymouth was more than I dared to hope.
I presume to this I may attribute the number of hale-looking, cheerful old people in Plymouth. I have no doubt it has had its effect also on the religious liberality so prevalent here, as I find that nobody makes mouths at you for being a Unitarian, or an Episcopalian, or of any other denomination that happens to suit your complaint. Rev. Mr. Robinson, the minister of the church in Holland from which "the Mayflower" Christians came, inculcated upon his flock this bit of pure gospel, in his parting sermon to them, that, "there was a great deal of truth coming out ahead that they had not even dreamed of as yet;" and particularly warned them against that spiritual conceit which should close their eyes to the perception of it. Now that's what I call liberal Christianity. Ministers, deacons, and the religious world generally will please take notice.
Since I came here, Plymouth has distinguished itself by a storm of rain and wind, the like of which I never saw before. I began to think over my transgressions; but really there were so many of them, and the house rocked so, and the trees swirled round at such a furious rate, that I had no clear idea then, nor have I since, of their number or enormity. And the very next morning the sun shone out so brightly on uprooted trees and unroofed barns and tumble-down chimneys, and the flowers that from their lowliness had escaped the avenger, that I took heart of grace, and classed myself among the latter!
NO BEAUX ANYWHERE
NO beaux! Absolutely no beaux! Well, young ladies, stop and consider, if, after all, you yourselves have not pronounced the sentence of banishment.
We? – we "banish" them? Good gracious! Is it not for them we have devised all this elaboration of adornment? We, indeed! Were we not, for weeks, before we came to these odious mountains, where men are as scarce as French hair-dressers, closeted with our dress-makers and milliners to produce these bewitching "suits," long and short, for morning and evening, out-door and indoor wear? Have we not cool dresses and warm dresses; dresses for rain, dresses for sunshine, dresses for neutral weather, with ribbons, gloves, sashes, parasols, hats and fans to "match," to the minutest shade? For whom should we take all that trouble but for the beaux? And how are we responsible for their disgusting absence?
Listen, my dears, for in that which you have just said lies your offence. Can damsels thus arrayed walk in the woods, climb the mountains (except in poetry)? Can they take even an ordinary, mild walk, without mortal terror of perilling their millinery? Must they not, therefore, "ride," morning, afternoon, and evening, everywhere, to the delectation of stable-keepers, and the consequent pecuniary depletion of the "beaux"? These beaux, whose fathers may be rich, but whose sons have yet to fill their individual coffers; these beaux, who have just so much to expend when they get away for a summer holiday, and who do not desire to pour it all into the pockets of the stable-keepers; these beaux, who can get vastly more fun out of their purses, and make them last longer, with a party of "the fellows," – this is the reason that, with rare exceptions, you have to throw away these ravishing toilettes on your own sex, when you play croquet, or sit on the piazza, dreaming of the "coming man."
My dears, he wont come! He knows too much. He has seen his sister's milliner and mantua-maker bills, and heard the family discussions thereon; and though he acknowledges your fascinations even through all the absurd toggery you are doomed by fashion's slavery to have and to wear, he has yet to make the fortune to enable him to foot his angel's bills. So he runs away from you, discreetly; runs off fishing, or gunning, with "the fellows," and, wiser than you, comes home brown, hale, and hearty for the winter months, instead of perspiring at your side in tight boots and yellow kids.
Do you begin to understand? Now, my dears, if you have been ushered into the world in a coach and six, till your feet and hands have become paralyzed for want of use, that's your misfortune, not your fault, because that necessitates a rich husband. And as there are very few rich young husbands, you will have to bid good-by to your girlish ideal, and marry the bald-headed, gouty Mr. Smith, who was born at the same time as your own father. This, my dears, you will have to do, or face your nightmare, single blessedness.
I have looked at you playing croquet, without a coat-tail among you; I have seen you driving yourselves out in your pretty little phaetons; and though you put a brave face on it, I know very well what is going on under that gay little sash of yours; and I think it is a pity that you should have been brought up to so many artificial wants, that your heart must go hungry in life's spring-time because of them.
My dears, I never lacked beaux at your age. But a walk in the woods, or in the city either, involved no expense to my beaux. I could climb a fence, where there was no gate, or where there was either; I was not afraid of dew, or rain, because my dress was simple. My gifts were not diamonds, but flowers, or books. My mother would not have allowed me to ride with gentlemen, had they asked me. When they came to spend an evening, our tray of refreshments did not involve a "French cook." So you see, my dears, though I had no silk dresses, I had plenty of beaux, and a gay heart; and I enjoyed a sail with an old sun-bonnet over my curls, or a moonlight ramble, with a merry party, much better than you do "the German;" and half an hour was sufficient warning for me "to dress" for any kind of a party – indoors or out – because, unlike you, I was not bothered to choose from twenty dresses which to wear; and I will give you leave to ask any of my beaux, who are now grandfathers, if I was not able at that time to settle their accounts! And it is because I had such a good time that I feel vexed that your youth and prettiness should so often go a-begging – through no fault of yours; and you may show this to your mothers and tell them I say so.
In the country, too, matrons, we have full trunks and absent husbands.
It was a quiet little village; just such a place as you, madam, with your six children, sensibly clad in calico, would like to have enjoyed the sweet summer days in. There was no "dress;" there were no "hops," in hot halls, by gas-light; there were no masquerade balls. Everybody was in bed by ten o'clock, save a few smokers, who profaned the sweet, odorous quiet with their vile tobacco fumes. There was plenty of driving through the bewitching roads, plenty of walking, some gossip, —which I have ascertained has no sex– some croquet-ing and crochetting, but no coquetting, because there was a great vacuum where beaux should be. Altogether, the city residents of Frog-ville were a sensible set.
But, alas! one unlucky day the shrieking cars landed at the door of the principal boarding-house a woman. That was not an event of itself, but this woman was accompanied by many trunks. Nobody knew whence she came, but conjecture was rife as to the contents of the trunks. Breakfast, next morning, solved the mystery. Mrs. Fire-Fly – for she was a Mrs. – none the less dangerous for that – on the contrary! – swept into the dining-hall in a train about six yards long. The train was white and spotless; the floor was not. The lady carried her coffee to her lips, with diamond girdled fingers, steadily, with an eye to her delicate ribbons. Scipio, who handed her beefsteak over her shoulder, had no time to consider such trifles. Little puddles of milk lay in wait on the floor for that spotless train, dexteriously coiled, by its owner, like an anaconda under the table. Pools of milk, tea-drippings, and bits of omelette, dislodged from their moorings, by hot haste in serving, were dotted, here and there, in the path she would soon be called upon to mop on her exit. At length she rose! Her train followed at a respectful distance. The eyes of the dozen or two sensible women, clad in sensible raiment, followed that train. Its dainty owner, with a disdain of economy, born of many trunks, and their ample contents, did not so much as lift it with one of her jeweled fingers. On she swept, through the coffee-pools – through the gravy-drippings – through the milk-puddles, out into the hall.
The sensible women present looked after her spell-bound. Then they gazed into each other's eyes, and murmured, "Paris!" Alas! the serpent in fairest guise had entered the primitive Eden of Frog-ville. The sensible matrons looked now, through different spectacles, at their alpacas and calicoes. How mean in comparison! Their trimmings, how "dowdy"! The fit of their bodices, how awkward! Dinner-time came, with added newness and added splendors. Cobweb tissues, with frost-work trimmings, and train longer by two yards than the breakfast train. And such ribbons! And such jewelry! How tasteless was the beef that day; how disgusting the mutton; how prosaic their gingham-clad, rosy children; how tame and humdrum was life generally. And then, this dainty lady had "a maid." They had no "maids." They had never felt the need of a "maid" till now. How had they ever combed their tresses? How had they ever fastened their own dresses? Pshaw! their dresses! How unworthy the name – mere wrappers. Gracious! how miserable were these heretofore happy women. Never till now did they know how miserable they were. The dainty lady's husband, 'tis true, was not with her. She had to do without him; while they had theirs with them. Her husband was in the hot, smoky city, earning more money for more "Paris" dresses – that is, he was earning money during the day; what he did with his solitary evenings or nights, the dainty wife did not inquire. She was satisfied; she was brimming with content, that she alone, amid all these wives and mothers, had "Paris" dresses.
"I really must have some clothes," said one of the hitherto sensible matrons, "the next time I go into the country. I didn't know, till Mrs. Fire-Fly came, how very shabby was my wardrobe."
"I would rather," said a friend at her elbow, "that you, the healthy mother of six healthy daughters, should have said: 'I didn't know, till Mrs. Fire-Fly came, how sensible and befitting the country was my wardrobe; and how proper and right it was that my husband should be taking his rest in the country with me, instead of divorcing himself at the risk of our mutual peace, to furnish me with nine trunks full of Paris dresses.'"
"I have done nothing to-day but keep things straight in the house," you say wearily at the close of it. Do you call that nothing? Nothing that your children are healthy, and happy, and secured from evil influence? Nothing that neatness, and thrift, and wholesome food follow the touch of your finger-tips? Nothing that beauty in place of ugliness meets the eye of the cheerful little ones, in the plants at your window, in the picture on the wall? Nothing that home to them means home, and will always do so, to the end of life, what vicissitudes soever that may involve? Oh, careworn mother! is all this nothing? Is it nothing that over against your sometime-mistakes and sometime-discouragement shall be written, "She hath done what she could?"