They say--people who ought to be ashamed of themselves do--that theconsciousness of being well dressed imparts a blissfulness to thehuman heart that religion is powerless to bestow. I am afraid thesecynical persons are sometimes correct. I know that when I was a veryyoung man (many, many years ago, as the story-books say) and wantedcheering up, I used to go and dress myself in all my best clothes. IfI had been annoyed in any manner--if my washerwoman had discharged me,for instance; or my blank-verse poem had been returned for the tenthtime, with the editor's compliments "and regrets that owing to want ofspace he is unable to avail himself of kind offer;" or I had beensnubbed by the woman I loved as man never loved before--by the way,it's really extraordinary what a variety of ways of loving there mustbe. We all do it as it was never done before. I don't know how ourgreat-grandchildren will manage. They will have to do it on theirheads by their time if they persist in not clashing with any previousmethod.
Well, as I was saying, when these unpleasant sort of things happenedand I felt crushed, I put on all my best clothes and went out. Itbrought back my vanishing self-esteem. In a glossy new hat and a pairof trousers with a fold down the front (carefully preserved by keepingthem under the bed--I don't mean on the floor, you know, but betweenthe bed and the mattress), I felt I was somebody and that there wereother washerwomen: ay, and even other girls to love, and who wouldperhaps appreciate a clever, good-looking young fellow. I didn'tcare; that was my reckless way. I would make love to other maidens.
I felt that in those clothes I could do it.
They have a wonderful deal to do with courting, clothes have. It ishalf the battle. At all events, the young man thinks so, and itgenerally takes him a couple of hours to get himself up for theoccasion. His first half-hour is occupied in trying to decide whetherto wear his light suit with a cane and drab billycock, or his blacktails with a chimney-pot hat and his new umbrella. He is sure to beunfortunate in either decision. If he wears his light suit and takesthe stick it comes on to rain, and he reaches the house in a damp andmuddy condition and spends the evening trying to hide his boots. If,on the other hand, he decides in favor of the top hat andumbrella--nobody would ever dream of going out in a top hat without anumbrella; it would be like letting baby (bless it!) toddle out withoutits nurse. How I do hate a top hat! One lasts me a very long while,I can tell you. I only wear it when--well, never mind when I wear it.
It lasts me a very long while. I've had my present one five years.
It was rather old-fashioned last summer, but the shape has come roundagain now and I look quite stylish.
But to return to our young man and his courting. If he starts offwith the top hat and umbrella the afternoon turns out fearfully hot,and the perspiration takes all the soap out of his mustache andconverts the beautifully arranged curl over his forehead into a limpwisp resembling a lump of seaweed. The Fates are never favorable tothe poor wretch. If he does by any chance reach the door in propercondition, she has gone out with her cousin and won't be back tilllate.
How a young lover made ridiculous by the gawkiness of modern costumemust envy the picturesque gallants of seventy years ago! Look at them(on the Christmas cards), with their curly hair and natty hats, theirwell-shaped legs incased in smalls, their dainty Hessian boots, theirruffling frills, their canes and dangling seals. No wonder the littlemaiden in the big poke-bonnet and the light-blue sash casts down hereyes and is completely won. Men could win hearts in clothes likethat. But what can you expect from baggy trousers and a monkeyjacket?
Clothes have more effect upon us than we imagine. Our deportmentdepends upon our dress. Make a man get into seedy, worn-out rags, andhe will skulk along with his head hanging down, like a man going outto fetch his own supper beer. But deck out the same article ingorgeous raiment and fine linen, and he will strut down the mainthoroughfare, swinging his cane and looking at the girls as perky as abantam cock.
Clothes alter our very nature. A man could not help being fierce anddaring with a plume in his bonnet, a dagger in his belt, and a lot ofpuffy white things all down his sleeves. But in an ulster he wants toget behind a lamp-post and call police.
I am quite ready to admit that you can find sterling merit, honestworth, deep affection, and all such like virtues of theroast-beef-and-plum-pudding school as much, and perhaps more, underbroadcloth and tweed as ever existed beneath silk and velvet; but thespirit of that knightly chivalry that "rode a tilt for lady's love"and "fought for lady's smiles" needs the clatter of steel and therustle of plumes to summon it from its grave between the dusty foldsof tapestry and underneath the musty leaves of moldering chronicles.
The world must be getting old, I think; it dresses so very soberlynow. We have been through the infant period of humanity, when we usedto run about with nothing on but a long, loose robe, and liked to haveour feet bare. And then came the rough, barbaric age, the boyhood ofour race. We didn't care what we wore then, but thought it nice totattoo ourselves all over, and we never did our hair. And after thatthe world grew into a young man and became foppish. It decked itselfin flowing curls and scarlet doublets, and went courting, andbragging, and bouncing--making a brave show.
But all those merry, foolish days of youth are gone, and we are verysober, very solemn--and very stupid, some say--now. The world is agrave, middle-aged gentleman in this nineteenth century, and would beshocked to see itself with a bit of finery on. So it dresses in blackcoats and trousers, and black hats, and black boots, and, dear me, itis such a very respectable gentleman--to think it could ever have gonegadding about as a troubadour or a knight-errant, dressed in all thosefancy colors! Ah, well! we are more sensible in this age.
Or at least we think ourselves so. It is a general theory nowadaysthat sense and dullness go together.
Goodness is another quality that always goes with blackness. Verygood people indeed, you will notice, dress altogether in black, evento gloves and neckties, and they will probably take to black shirtsbefore long. Medium goods indulge in light trousers on week-days, andsome of them even go so far as to wear fancy waistcoats. On the otherhand, people who care nothing for a future state go about in lightsuits; and there have been known wretches so abandoned as to wear awhite hat. Such people, however, are never spoken of in genteelsociety, and perhaps I ought not to have referred to them here.
By the way, talking of light suits, have you ever noticed how peoplestare at you the first time you go out in a new light suit They donot notice it so much afterward. The population of London have gotaccustomed to it by the third time you wear it. I say "you," becauseI am not speaking from my own experience. I do not wear such thingsat all myself. As I said, only sinful people do so.
I wish, though, it were not so, and that one could be good, andrespectable, and sensible without making one's self a guy. I look inthe glass sometimes at my two long, cylindrical bags (so picturesquelyrugged about the knees), my stand-up collar and billycock hat, andwonder what right I have to go about making God's world hideous. Thenwild and wicked thoughts come into my heart. I don't want to be goodand respectable. (I never can be sensible, I'm told; so that don'tmatter.) I want to put on lavender-colored tights, with red velvetbreeches and a green doublet slashed with yellow; to have a light-bluesilk cloak on my shoulder, and a black eagle's plume waving from myhat, and a big sword, and a falcon, and a lance, and a prancing horse,so that I might go about and gladden the eyes of the people. Whyshould we all try to look like ants crawling over a dust-heap? Whyshouldn't we dress a little gayly? I am sure if we did we should behappier. True, it is a little thing, but we are a little race, andwhat is the use of our pretending otherwise and spoiling fun? Letphilosophers get themselves up like old crows if they like. But letme be a butterfly.
Women, at all events, ought to dress prettily. It is their duty.
They are the flowers of the earth and were meant to sh............