The evening book, or, Fireside talk on morals
and manners with sketches of western life |
THE SIGNIFICANCE OF DRESS. |
 | The evening book, or, Fireside talk on morals
and manners |  |
THE SIGNIFICANCE OF DRESS.
A year or two ago, Blackwood, that `nest of spicery,' gave us a
series of brilliant papers on the Æsthetics of Dress, replete with such
valuable practical hints, that the bon ton should have given the
writer a statue, draped on his own principles of taste and fitness;
not classic, perhaps, but deserving to become so. We considered
him, at the time, a public benefactor, and hoped to see the truths
he rendered so obvious make their due impression on our beaux and
belles, `well-preserved' bachelors, and ladies of a certain age; guarding
them against some of the nameless but hideous errors which
disguise beauty and render ugliness conspicuous. The application
has not been as general as we could have desired. We still see
triple skirts on squab-figures; blush-roses on three-score; scarlet
flowers neighboring flaxen ringlets, and huge shawls enveloping forms
which, under the most favorable circumstances, would remind one
but too surely of Salmagundi's comparison of `a bed and bolster,
rolled up in a suit of curtains.' If we had our will, those papers
would be republished in pamphlet form, and scattered all over the
land, that our nascent gentility might be trained in the growing.
Dress may still be considered in a state of nature with us. Not
that it is original or inventive; far from these! but running wild, in
the direction of expense; as the pumpkin-vine darts out its disproportioned
all, since it cannot nourish its roots.
This beneficent Blackwoodian having said all that could be said of
dress as a concern of the eyes merely, we propose, in our sober way,
to take up the subject from a somewhat graver side, considering
dress as having a meaning, or as being an expression of sentiment.
Not to be frightfully serious, is all we can promise our youthful
readers. If they should feel a tap now and then, we must say to
them as the conscientious Quaker did to his wife when he was
administering domestic discipline,—`Why does thee cry so? It's
all for thy own good!”
Dress may serve as either a grave or a gay subject. For those
who relish satire, what can afford fairer game than the blunders of
some unfortunate people, who, having come into possession of plenty
of money, are more guided by costliness than taste in their choice of
costume? What overdoing and overlaying, what contradiction and
monotony, what frippery and furbelow, marks the trappings of such?
No militia adjutant on parade, no pet fire-engine in a procession, was
ever worse bedizened. Who has not seen a lady get into a dusty
omnibus with her pearl-colored skirts fluttering with flounces, her
crape bonnet tremulous with flowers, her white shawl lustrous with
embroidery, her wrists manacled with golden fetters and dangling
lockets; her laces, her delicate gloves, her silver card-case, her glittering
chains all point-de-vice—and—all shocking! We pity where
we are expected to admire—that is, we call by the amiable name of
pity a feeling which, more severely construed, would be found to
border closely on contempt. Each portion of the tout ensemble is
beautiful; perhaps even the whole might not be offensive for some
particular and private display; but for an omnibus! There is something
profane in the public eye, and therefore the outdoor costume
at least in particulars, or by reason of costliness or show.
Moralizers sometimes say we should not judge of people by their
dress. But we may and ought, though without transgressing the
law which this wise saw is intended to imply, supposing it to mean
that we are not to despise those who are not dressed richly or with
elegance. It is true some good people dress badly, judged by the
common standard; yet dress must be characteristic where it is the
result of free choice; even the beggar may wear his rags `with
a difference.' The sentimental novelists, who have in general no
great insight, have discovered this; virtuous poverty is, with
them, always picturesque. We, however, who deal with common
facts rather than with uncommon fancies, should hardly think it fair
to judge the very poor by their dress. We speak only of those to
whom costume is a subject of reflection and of taste. This class is
quite numerous enough to afford matter for our paper.
People who live in a state of abstraction must of course be excused
for sins against taste in dress. Grave and reverend professors
have been known to do or leave undone strange things; the outward
man suffering in proportion as the inner soared to the depths sublime
of science or speculation. A letter-writer from Germany describes
the celebrated Neander as going one degree beyond Dominie
Sampson, in indifference to popular prejudice on this subject. And
Goethe tells a good story of Gottsched, a German savant whom he
visited at Leipzig, who entered the room, when summoned to receive
stranger guests, with his monstrous bald head totally uncovered; and
when his servant rushed in with a great full-bottomed peruque,
which was his head-gear of ceremony, dealt the unfortunate lackey a
sound box on the ear for not having put it on him before he had
exhibited himself in such a ridiculous plight; talking all the while
an old scandal against literary ladies, charging them with carelessness
in respect of appearance. Pope, after he quarrelled with his
adored Lady Mary, was never tired of holding up her slatternly
habits as the consequence of bookish propensities; but this is exploded
now. Literary ladies are not easily distinguishable from other
women by any outward marks; and it would probably startle a
gentleman to be received, as tradition says an American bas-bleu of
the last century received a visiter of distinction—with her head tied
up in brown paper and vinegar, a folio resting on her lap, and her
feet immersed in hot water!
Grave occupations cannot be supposed to interfere with due attention
to dress in all cases, for the clergy are the best dressed men
among us; even the most dressed, if we except the small class of
fledgling exquisites, whose minds the tie of a cravat is sufficient to fill.
Although not bound to a particular costume, as in England, our
clergy may almost be said to dress in uniform, for the black suit
and the white cravat mark them unmistakeably. And the threadbare
appearance that we have read of, as sometimes characterizing the less
fortunate members of the profession in former days, would be a
phenomenon; nobody now living ever saw a shabby suit of clerical
black. One would think the whole class passed daily through the
hands of those ingenious persons who advertise to make worn cloth
“look equal to new.” We cannot deny that there is something
pleasant to us in this reminiscence of the day when a gentleman was
distinguishable by his dress. The plainness, approaching even to
neglect, observable in grave men of other professions, shocks our
cherished prejudices. We would have the scholar look like a
scholar; let him be “melancholy” if he will, so he be “gentleman-like.”
It is his right and duty. It is true.
May be indifferent to its house of clay,
And slight the hovel as beneath its care—
man who deals with grave matters. How should we like to see
Hamlet flaunting in buff and blue; or Dr. Primrose in plaid neckcloth
and corduroys?
Lockhart describes Mr. Crabbe, standing in the midst of half a
dozen stalwart Highlanders at Sir Walter Scott's, the Celts in full
costume on the occasion of the King's visit to Edinburgh; the poet-clergyman,
dressed in the highest style of professional decorum, with
powdered head, buckles in his shoes, and whatever else was befitting
one of his years and station. The Highlanders mistook the churchman
for some foreign Abbé, or, as one account says, for a French
dancing-master, and began to talk French to him; while he, in his
turn, supposed them to be a parcel of wild and rather dangerous
savages. It was only after Sir Walter entered the room and introduced
his friends to each other, that they discovered themselves to
be all equally peaceable British gentlemen, made strangers to each
other only by being at the antipodes of dress.
It has been the well-motived atttempt of some moralists to represent
dress as a thing of no consequence; undeserving the attention of
a rational being. But truth and nature are too strong for this compulsive
pedantry of purism. Every man, woman, and child, knows
that dress is a thing of consequence to the wearer; and all the biographers
bear testimony to fact that it is also important to the
beholder; for they never fail to describe the habitual costume of
their subject where it can be ascertained, as at least one means of
insight into character. Could we have pardoned Mr. Boswell
if he had given us no hint of Dr. Johnson's `vest unbuttoned, and
which he put on when great doings were on the carpet? Or could
we have believed him if he had described his hero prim and powdered,
silk-stockinged, and shining-shoed? Goldsmith, with his gnawing
desire to be liked, confessed the importance of dress, by going beyond
his means in finery, which he imagined would help to hide his
awkwardness, when he was to meet those whom he wished to please.
Madame Goethe, the poet's mother, when she prepared to receive a
visit of honor from Madame de Staël, arrayed herself so gorgeously
in dazzling silks, with nodding plumes of two or three colors, that
Bettina came near fainting with laughter; and the same Bettina,
who found the good lady's desire to strike so ridiculous, has lost the
respect of the world by a personal neglect far more offensive than
the most mistaken efforts to please. How many descriptions of
costume are to be found in Horace Walpole's acrid letters! One
would think his soul might once have inhabited the body of a court-milliner.
And with what gusto does Pepys dwell upon his purchases
of rich attire for himself and his wife—`a night-gown, a great
bargain at 24s.,' and `the very stuff for a cloak cost £6, and the
outside of a coat £8,' costume being, evidently, in his eyes, one of
the great engines of human life. Novelists of all classes confess the
significance of dress, when they devise expressive gowns and ornaments
for their heroines, and appropriate drapery for their terrible
and grotesque characters. Richardson understood this matter perfectly.
In order to set Sir Charles Grandison and Miss Byron
distinctly before us, every article they wore is described; color, form,
texture, and cost. Miss Burney showed her sympathy with her
sex, by confessing the temptations of dress to young ladies in society.
Part of Camilla Tyrold's terrible troubles, over which so many
youthful tears have been shed, arose from her having been led into
Mittin, and so running her father in debt until he was thrown into
jail on her account. Sir Walter Scott does not disdain to expatiate
largely on the costume of his figures, and to show that to him dress
was as truly part of the man or woman, as the more strictly natural
and indispensable envelopings of the soul. His own dress had a
suitable sturdiness, expressive of the true, manly, human side of his
character; that side which had withstood the conventional temptations
and delusions too potent with us all. `An old green shooting-jacket,
with a dog-whistle at the button-hole, brown linen pantaloons,
stout shoes that tied at the ankles, and a white hat that had
evidently seen service,' constituted the array in which the `mighty
minstrel' came limping down the gravel-walk at Abbotsford to meet
Washington Irving. When he dressed for dinner, he appeared in
black, as became the gentleman and the poet. Now, the broadbacked
coat, the heavy shoes, and the stout stick, are shown in the
hall closet at Abbotsford, sad and most characteristic memorials of
one to whose gifted eye trifles were instinct with meaning.
It is somewhat to be wondered at, that a people so notedly
shrewd as the Society of Friends, should have set themselves deliberately
at stemming a current which evidently takes its rise somewhere
deep in the foundations of our being; and still more that
they should have attempted to reduce the importance and seductiveness
of dress by making it an object of strenuous attention. There
is, however, much that is rational in a utilitarian point of view, as
well as much plausibility in a religious one, in their stringent rules
as to form, color, and expensiveness in costume. The form is
intended as a protest against the silly evanescence of the fashions,
which, not satisfied with changing as often as the moon, scarcely outlast
the lunar rainbow. The regulated cut is that which all the
prevailing drab has an obvious intent, as excluding gay and attractive
colors, which are apt to beguile young eyes and thoughts. The
proscription of certain rich and costly materials respects the general
caution against conformity to the worldly standard, which is that of
cost, and also the duty of reserving our means for better objects than
mere outward beautifying. It needs no argument to show the
excellence of these latter reasons for plain dress; and society gives
them the assurance of its approval, by making it the most frequent
ground of sarcasm against the Quakers, that they indemnify themselves
for plain cut and color by wearing the most expensive fabrics,
an inconsistency too obvious for excuse. Whether this general
charge be just or not, it is certain that many conscientious Friends
would as soon wear scarlet gowns as silken ones, or dashing waistcoats
as fine broadcloth.
One advantage of the plain or Quaker dress is that it renders
neatness indispensable. What is partly dust-colored already,
becomes intolerable after it has contracted any soil; and the nature
of the soft neutral tints is such, that whatever is worn with them
must be pure, or it is shown up, inevitably. Lace may be yellow,
and rich ribands crumpled, with small offence; but a plain cap
depends for its beauty upon snowy whiteness and a perfect accuracy
and primness of outline. `The very garments of a Quaker,' says
Charles Lamb, `seem incapable of receiving a soil; and cleanliness
in them to be something more than the absence of its contrary.
Every Quakeress is a lily: and when they come up in bands to
their Whitsun conferences, whitening the easterly streets of the
metropolis, they show like troops of the Shining Ones.' Every one
is charmed with this dress in its perfection; we never hear any one
say it is not beautiful, at least on young women, whose fresh faces
primness of the style, and the habitual or enforced placidity of the
countenances of those who use it, have given occasion for charges
of affectation or coquetry in the young sisters. But they may be
consoled: for the imputation of trying to be charming is, in this
case, only a confession that they are so.
The grace and beauty of the Quaker dress depends—as all that
is lovely in outward manifestation must—upon its being a true
expression of the spirit. Where it is simply formal, it is hard and
ungainly; where it is compulsory, it betrays the wearer's true
tastes and wishes by unconscious deviations from the standard, and
leanings towards the forbidden. Where it is worn on conviction, it
is exact and not unbecoming; but if the result of enthusiasm, it
becomes classic and elegant as Roman drapery. We have seen a
Friend who, without the least ostentation, refrained from wearing
anything that had been dyed, preferring garments of the natural
color, as being the extreme of simplicity. The world might laugh
at such a twilight-gray as this combination of soft browns produced,
but the painter would have found in it something congenial to his
eye, and a peculiar value in the power with which it set off a fresh,
ruddy complexion and silver hair. We remember a full-length picture
of Thorwaldsen, painted in Italy, which reminded us, in its
truly Quaker dress, of the undyed Friend we had seen years before.
It is noticeable that sculptors have no escape from the difficulties of
modern costume, except in a near approach to the simplicity of the
Quaker garb. If the marble man must have a coat on, the sculptor
perforce shaves off all lappels and finicalities, and comes as near a
seamless garment as possible—giving unconscious testimony to the
essential good taste of the followers of George Fox.
It is the compulsoriness of this dress that spoils it as an expression
whether to adopt or to reject the uniform, it would have
continued to have a meaning. As convictions deepened, indifference
to worldly opinion would have become more and more evident, by the
gradual disuse of worldly fashion, and conformity to the standard
of denominational simplicity. But where no liberty is allowed,
there can be no merit or significancy of choice. The plain garb
becomes not a whit more dignified than any other uniform which
is worn at peril of cashiering. Thousands whose conscience
approve the tenets of the Friends, and whose taste and judgment
favor extreme plainness and inexpensiveness of dress in people who
profess serious aims in life, have been deterred from joining the
society by a feeling that, to renounce one's judgment in a matter so
personal as dress, is practically degrading. The garb is intended as
an expression of a certain religious condition, yet it is to be worn
with the strictest attention to arbitrary rules, the least deviation
from which subjects the wearer to the interference of his fellow-Christians!
This mistake towards bondage is one great reason why,
while the principles of the Quakers are daily influencing those of
the world more and more, the Society, as a society is on the
decline. Religious liberty is more precious to the heart than any
other; and the more sincere and ardent our desire to withstand the
bad example of worldly people, the less should we be disposed to
adopt any fixed outward symbol which might express a greater
degree of renunciation than we had been able to reach.
There is, no doubt, a reflex influence in dress. One of the best
ways of inspiring the degraded with self-respect is to supply them
with decent and suitable clothing. We are wholly unable, at any
stage of cultivation, to withstand this influence. No lady is the
same in a careless and untasteful morning envelope, and an elegant
even though the latter may be quite incapable of inspiring her
with pride. No man feels quite at ease in a shining new coat; he
is conscious of an inequality between his present self and the old
friend whom he could have met so warmly yesterday. The friend
may not notice the coat or its influence, but the wearer never forgets
it. The Spectator, or some one of those cunning old observers, tells
of a young lady who carried herself with unusual hauteur, and
seemed to feel a new consciousness of power, upon no greater occasion
than the wearing of a new pair of elegant garters. This affords
an argument both for and against dress. We ought not to wear
what makes us proud and creates a secret contempt of others; but
neither should we neglect anything that aids our self-respect and
keeps our spirits at the proper pitch. Some parents, from the best
motives in the world, do their children serious injury by wilfully
denying them such dress as may put them on an outward equality
with their young companions, or make them feel equal. It is in
vain to be philosophical for other people; we must convince their
judgments and bring them over to our way of thinking, before we
can obtain true and healthy conformity. We submit with tolerable
grace to restraints rendered necessary by circumstances, but those
which appear to us capricious or arbitrary do not often make us
better, especially where they touch our pride—that tissue of irritable
nerves in which our moral being is enwrapt.
Every one must have noticed the effect of dress upon the character
and condition of servants. Those who have grown up in houses
where slatternly personal habits are allowed, never become really
respectable, even although they may have many good qualities.
They do not respect themselves, and their sympathy with their
employers is blunted by the great difference in outward appearance.
principle, that they end in erring on the side of too much attention
to costume. We remember once, and once only, finding at a foreign
hotel a chambermaid dressed in silk, with artificial roses in her hair;
the feeling that she would not be of much use to us flashing across
the mind at once. English servants hit the happy medium oftener
than any other; their tidiness suggests alacrity, and we have a comfortable
assurance of being well served, as soon as we look upon
them. It is odd what a difference one feels in offering a gratuity to
a well or ill-dressed attendant in travelling. Shabbiness favors our
penuriousness, most remarkably! The eye scans the expectant
instinctively, and instead of the generous impulse to give most liberally
to those who need, we graduate our donation by the probable
expectation of one who has evidently not found the world very
generous. If the servant be well enough dressed to bespeak independence,
and especially if he be gifted with the modest assurance
which is often both cause and consequence of good fortune, pride
whispers us at once not to disgust so genteel a person by a shabby
gift, and we bestow on success what we should grudge to necessity.
Who can guess the influence of dress upon the soldier? What
would be the spirit of an army in plain clothes, patched at the
elbows, or even frosty at the seams? In this inquiry we bar the
American Revolution, and the `looped and windowed raggedness'
of its heroes, as not being in point. We are speaking of soldiers by
profession, not of men in arms for their altars and their fires. How
many of our young men would seek commissions if the Quaker garb
were prescribed? Sydney Smith speaks of the privilege of ornamenting
one's head with the tail of a belligerent bird, and covering
with gold lace the course of the ischiatic nerve, as among the strong
reasons for military ardor, and he was doubtless right. If bravery
would be fewer soldiers: `a swashing and a martial outside' inspires
the imagination, at least, if not the reason. But what has reason to
do with fighting, a matter in which cocks and bull-dogs are so far
superior to men?
The conventual dress has evidently no little power over the imagination,
and consequently over the character and feelings of the
wearer. No one can see a nun without being sensible of this.
There is such a careful significance about it, and it is so different in
principle from the dress of the world, that it would seem as if
worldly passions and affections could hardly live within it. The
Black and the Gray nuns, of certain orders, wear bands of starched
linen which entirely hide the forehead, cheeks, chin, and bust, while
the back of the head and person is equally concealed by a veil of
black serge, fastened at the crown and so arranged that a portion
can be drawn over the eyes. This is the nun of our youthful fancy,
and we cannot approach her without a degree of awe, while, on her
part, she seems to feel herself a sacred person. Turn her out into
the world and dress her like other women, and new cares and wishes
would roll in upon her like a flood, for she would lack one continual
memento, if not support, of her sanctity. Beads and breviaries
would soon seem out of place among jewels and laces; as embarrassing
as, per contra, were the flounces of a dashing dame whom
we saw painfully toiling up the Scala Santa on her knees, and
obliged to lift and manage her rebellious finery at every rise. The
nuns at the Béguinage, near Ghent, wear great wide-bordered caps,
like market-women, and so they seemed very much in place sitting
in the shade of the wall, shelling beans, and chattering among themselves,
with no great appearance or perhaps even feeling of dignity
although they are said to be mostly high-born. We may urge this
showy tastes. The appetite grows with what it feeds on; our
standard rises with our habits. When we are used to the feeling
which accompanies rich and recherché costume, a lower style seems
to us mean and unworthy, especially on ourselves—it is well if the
influence go no further. What pitiable instances we see of a
depression that has no better source than the lack of means to dress
expensively, after the habit had been formed; what a craven spirit
is that which has nothing better to sustain it than the consciousness
of elegant clothing! Poor human nature! Few of us dare profess
to be free from this weakness. It is strange that literary efforts
should be sometimes dependent on dress, yet we are assured that
this is the case. One author can only write in dishabille, another in
full dress. Richardson required a laced suit, and a diamond on his
finger; Rousseau acknowledged a similar dependence at certain
periods of his life. We once knew a minister who never wrote a
good sermon unless he had his old study-gown on. Scott boasted
that he never learned any of the night-gown-and-slipper tricks that
literary men are apt to indulge in, but pursued his avocations in his
ordinary gear. Lady-authors do not let the world into the secrets
of their boudoir; but we suspect few of them write with arms
covered with bracelets, or waists compressed to French-print pattern,
however they may own subjection to these vanities in their ordinary
states. Literary pursuits have certainly some slight tendency to
preserve the mind from too exclusive devotion to appearance; let
this atone for some of the sins which they are supposed to favor.
One vice of dress literary ladies are accused of, and sometimes
justly, viz.: a predilection for the picturesque. We call this a vice
of dress, because it generally makes the wearer remarkable, and not
pleasantly so. Dress may be sometimes individual without offence;
its general aspect, conform to the common standard, not to an ideal
one peculiar to the wearer. It must be remembered that costume
which would serve admirably for a picture or a description, may be
quite unpresentable in a drawing-room. In the old satirical novel of
Cherubina, or the Heroine, the lady, impassioned for the picturesque,
takes `an entire piece of the finest cambric,' and disposes it most
statuesquely about her person. `A zone, a clasp, and a bodkin,' she
says, `completed all!' But the result was disastrous. Far short
of this extreme, we have seen imaginative ladies make the most
extraordinary figure in company, from the indulgence of an individual
taste in dress, instead of a modest acquiescence with the reigning
mode.
`What! be a slave to fashion!' `No, but make fashion your
servant, by using it just so far as it serves your purpose, i. e., enables
you to present a becoming and respectable appearance in society.'
We venture to say that it is hardly possible to respect anybody who
is fantastically dressed. To differ much from others in this matter,
bespeaks a degree of thought and plan on the part of the wearer,
which detracts from dignity of character. We all like the company
of even an ultra-fashionist, made up by tailors or milliners, better
than of one who forces us to notice trifles, by appearing in array so
peculiar as to strike the eye while it offends the habit, at least, if not
the judgment. To be passive under the hands of people who make
it their business to study the forms, effect, and harmony of dress is
surely wiser than to usurp their office, for which one's own habitual
employments are likely to do anything but prepare. A veto power
must be reserved, however, for people who live always in an atmosphere
of decoration are rather prone to overdress one, if they are not
the light of common day ineffectual.
Women generally have an intense dislike to the picturesque style
in female dress, and they are not at all apt to think favorably of the
stray sheep who adopt it. Some `ill-avis'd' persons fancy that ladies
dress for the eyes of gentlemen, but this opinion shows little knowledge
of the sex. Gentlemen dress for ladies, but ladies for each
other. The anxiety that is felt about the peculiarities of fashion, the
chase after novelty, the thirst for expense, all refer to women's judgment
and admiration, for of these particulars men know nothing.
Here we touch upon the point in question. Women who depart
from fashion in search of the picturesque are suspected of a special
desire to be charming to the other sex, a fault naturally unpardonable,
for ought we not all to start fair? Has any individual a right
to be weaving private nets, and using unauthorized charms? A
lady who values her character, had better not pretend to be independent
of the fashion. The extra admiration of a few of her more
poetical beaux will not compensate for the angry sarcasms she must
expect from her own sex. This is a matter in which we find it hard
to be merciful, or even candid.
Shall the becoming, then, be sacrificed to the caprices of fashion,
which consults neither complexion, shape, nor air, but considers the
female sex only as a sort of dough, which is to be moulded at pleasure,
and squeezed into all possible forms, at the waving of a wand?
We do not go so far. There are rules of taste—standards of grace
and beauty—boundaries of modesty and propriety—restraints of
Christian benevolence. Saving and excepting the claims of these,
we say follow the fashion enough to avoid singularity, and do not
set up to be an inventor in costume.
Of the artifices of dress, we might say a good deal, if we were not
which defects of person are rendered less noticeable, as those which
are intended to compass an appearance beyond our means. This
leads to mock jewelry, and various other meannesses, as well as to
that vicious habit of shopping which tempts the salesman to dishonesty,
by showing him it is vain to hope to sell good articles at
fair prices. `We've been cutting up several whole pieces of lace
into remnants,' said a shopman the other day, in our hearing,
`because ladies will not buy unless we have remnants for them.'
And the time that is spent in walking miles in chase of bargains,
which generally prove dear enough in the end, might be considered
worse than wasted, if it were not that there is some exercise for the
muscles in this sort of enterprise. It is true that the desire to get
what the English call your `pen'orth,' is a natural one, and that it
is not very easy to draw the line between a proper care of one's
money, and too great a solicitude to obtain `cheap things.' Nobody
knows with certainty, except the purchaser herself, what is the
motive, and what the merit or demerit of the labor she submits to
in shopping; but she knows very well, and to her must the decision
be referred. If a weak hankering after a style of dress more costly
than we can honestly afford, causes us to shop in a mean and grasping
way, we, at least know it, whether any one else discovers it or
not, and it is a matter very well worth an hour's thought and
sifting.
There is, perhaps, nothing more hardening to the heart, in a small
way, than the habit here alluded to. After we have once set our
mark too high, and are straining every nerve to approach it, no
spare dollar is ever at our command for a benevolent or friendly purpose.
The too-great toils of an anxious husband—painful contrasts
with less aspiring or less successful friends—the half-paid labors of
sight of suffering which has just claims upon us—all are as nothing
and less than nothing. Conscience, pity, and affection are not more
surely blunted by any of the so-called minor offences, than by a pursuit
of dress in this temper. The competition is too keen for friendship,
too petty for generosity, almost too grasping for honesty. We
have high authority for believing that it has even been known to
lead to insanity, and, judging by some extreme cases within our
notice, we can well imagine it. A pursuit so futile, so inimical to all
that is serious and ennobling, can hardly be safe; for Nature will
revenge herself when we trample her best gifts under foot, and insist
on choosing for ourselves a position in the scale of being far lower
than that which she assigns us.
The practice of wearing mourning for departed friends, once universal
in this country, has fallen into disuse in no inconsiderable
degree. Many persons decline wearing it from a conscientious
scruple—saying, that although it is undoubtedly a gratification to
our feelings to discard all gay colors when the heart is oppressed
with grief, yet the practice among the richer classes of wearing
mourning, leads the poor—whose grief is equally sincere, and who
feel the same desire to show respect for the memory of the dead—
into expenses they cannot afford. Even among that large class
whose means barely suffice for a genteel appearance, it often happens
that to lay aside all the clothing already prepared for a family, and
buy a new outfit of expensive materials, is extremely inconvenient,
and leads to painful sacrifices for an inadequate cause.
This has always appeared to us rather a difficult point. To those
whose only law of conduct is implied in the inquiry, `What will
people say?' it is not a question at all; since the bare possibility
that their conduct will become the subject of remark, would operate
intrinsic propriety of any action. Nor to that other kind of
mourners whose anxiety for “fashionable,' and `becoming,' and
`proper' mourning, often fills the house of death with bustle and
animation, even while the cold remains which gave the excuse for
new dresses, are lying almost forgotten in the next room. These
are the last to inquire into the meaning or effects of the custom.
Its poetry, its philosophy, its utility, its morality concerns them not.
But to those whose hearts really long for some means of expressing
their unavailing sorrow, who hate the sight of all that is gay, and
almost of the blessed sun himself, during the first paroxysm of
grief, there is often a doubt as to the propriety of indulging the
natural feeling; and many have, at a great sacrifice, given up the
wearing of mourning, from the consideration to which we allude—
the inconvenience resulting to the poor from attempting to follow a
fashion which their feelings prompt, as much as those of their more
fortunate neighbors.
We acknowledge the excellence of the motive, and the truth of
the objection; yet we confess an increasing reluctance to see a time-hallowed
custom falling into disuse among those whose true and
loving hearts would give it its real consecration. Besides the poetry
of a `garb of woe,' to give an outward shadow of the grief within
there is a mute appeal to human sympathy, not without its uses in
a world where every change is towards the cold individuality that
affects to scorn all acknowledgment of mutual dependence. There
is a touch of nature about it. The most afflicted man of old said,
`Pity me, oh my friends! for the hand of God has touched me!'
and from his day to ours, such is the true and natural language of
the heart unbardened by pride and conventional refinement. We
long for sympathy, however unavailing; and though there is a mad
an unsubdued spirit, rebelling against the hand that smites, and
venting on the creature the anger whose real object is the Creator.
When the better moment comes, and reason and religion restore the
sufferer to himself, the deeper his affliction, the more sensible will he
be to the humblest expression of sympathy. Those who feel not
have not yet known grief.
In a certain class of society, the extreme punctiliousness with
which all the rules for a `proper' mourning costume are carried out,
is in strange contrast to the superiority to human sympathy which
is affected by the individuals concerned. So determined are they
to own nothing in common with ordinary clay, that they resent, as
an impertinent personalty, any particular inquiry after the health of
a member of the family who is evidently wasting with consumption,
or swollen with dropsy. They resolutely throw a veil over the
infirmities of nature, and affect not to believe that what they love,
`Like common earth can rot.'
the humiliating fact of a perishable nature like that of the
meanest beggar, with what a haughty disdain they seclude themselves
from all eyes—except the dressmaker's—leaving to hirelings
all that relates to the last disposition of the remains, watchful only
that no cost or ceremony which may vindicate the claims of an
unapproachable superiority may be lacking. Yet these very people,
secluded in all the dignity of aristocratic grief, may often be found
in most anxious consultation with the `artists' indispensable on such
occasions, as to the width of a hem, the length of a weeper, or the
latest style of a shroud! And all this with reference to an impression
on the very multitude whom they affect to despise.
A mourning garb is not without its utility, in reminding of our
loss, company who might otherwise forget that mirth would be distasteful;
and in accounting for a grave and sad countenance, which
might call forth remark or inquiry, which it would be painful to
answer. There may be cases, too, and we think we could point to
more than one, where bombazine and crape have served to keep in
the minds of the younger and more thoughtless members of a
family, that gaiety did not become those who had experienced a loss
that could never be repaired, or even those who had recently passed
through the sad scenes incident to a death in the house. But these
considerations referring merely to the outward, are of small consequence.
The conscientious scruple to which we referred, is one which we
owe to the Puritanic spirit, among many good things and some of
questionable advantage. The cultivation of an ever present regard
for the good of others is always commendable, but we must take the
wide and not the narrow view as to what is the best good of those
whom we would benefit. The domestic affections are among the best
safeguards of virtue; and whatever tends to keep these alive and
warm is of incalculable value. The utilitarian view, which would curtail
as much as possible the sorrow for the dead, is a chilling and injurious
one; and if mourning garments contribute in any degree to prolong
the tender impression, we should be willing that even the poor
should make considerable sacrifices to procure them. We should
be still better pleased to see the rich provide them for their poor
neighbors, making their own a little less costly, if necessary, in order
to gratify this natural feeling. Nothing valuable is gained by deadening
the sensibilities, yet it would seem to be the error of some
very good people to imagine that those in whom they take an interest,
are never quite in the right way until they subside into mere
much desired, are in themselves not without good effect; and when
that something is far removed from any gross or frivolous pleasure,
the very effort is enobling in a greater or less degree.
The practice of wearing some outward sign of mourning upon
the death of a relative is, we believe, as universal as sorrow itself.
It would seem to be a dictate of nature to signalize the departure
of a human soul from this busy scene of hopes and fears, by a
change in the outward appearance of those who survive. Philosophy
may teach that
The planets, all the infinite host of heaven,
Are shining on the sad abodes of death,
Through the still lapse of ages. All that tread
The globe are but a handful to the tribes
That slumber in its bosom:
untold millions gone before. Religion may assure us, that in spite
of the dread outward change, and the removal of the earthly tabernacle
from our sight forever, the freed soul knows no interruption to
its life, but rejoices in continuous and unbroken existence, endowed
with powers unknown before, and new capacities for the comprehension
of eternal truth. Yet death is awful to all, and the veriest
savages make its occurrence the occasion of solemn rites and personal
humiliation. Let us beware then how we interfere to counteract an
obvious dictate of nature.
There seems a peculiar fitness in black as the color of mourning
—so much so, that it seems a litle remarkable that various colors
should have been chosen by different nations for this purpose. The
hue which absorbs and hides all the rays that brighten the face of
creation, typifies well the chastened state of mind in which one idea
thoughts which are the source of comfort at other times, are either
indifferent or absolutely displeasing. Black is the color of the cloud
that hides the sun—of the gloomy cave—the shaded pool—the
cheerless midnight of the lonely watcher. It is the hue of decayed
nature—the image of the literal shadow which seems to rest upon
all outward objects when the delight of our eyes is removed at a
stroke. The black veil of the mourner enables her to weep unobserved—no
trifling boon, when even the most trivial occurrence or
ordinary object brings up the image of the loved and lost.
The punctilio of mourning—on which we set but little value—is
much more closely observed in Europe than in this country. There,
no person thinks of going to a funeral in any but a black dress—those
who are not in the habit of wearing it, keeping a suit for this purpose.
Every scrap of paper, card, fan, watch-ribbon, must bear some sign
of grief; and while etiquette is as closely consulted as ever, the
whole aspect of the household is changed. Not only do those in
mourning use black seals, but it is considered but polite for those
unconnected to seal with black in return. Some of these petty
observances are gaining ground among us, but we would not have
our observations respecting the uses of a mourning dress considered
as including them. They have little to do with the real meaning of
the custom.
In one respect we would gladly see our young countrywomen take
a lesson from the English, in the matter of mingling in the gayeties
of the world, while still shrouded in the dress which tells of a lost
friend. If we may believe Pope, the ladies of his time were sometimes
known
To midnight dances and the public show;
common. We have seen even a widow, in all the excitement of a
dance, with a scarf of black crape floating behind her, and her black
dress looking like an ominous cloud in the midst of gauze and roses.
But we would hope such sights are rare.
Almost all ornaments are out of place in mourning. Flounces and
furbelows are a miserable solecism, and black flowers an odious
mockery. The moment we feel a desire for these things, we should
honestly throw aside the semblance of wo, and confess that we are
quite ready for the world again. Perhaps one of the objections to
mourning is, that it gives occasion to no little hypocrisy of this sort.
The practice of wearing mourning is one in which all the
world has seemed, until now, to be of one mind. The savage wears
knife-cuts, the Jew, a beard—the Oriental ashes—the Anglo-Saxon,
bombazine and weepers—and so on, through a strange variety,
among which must be counted the flame-robe of the Hindoo widow,
probably in many cases no whit more truly significant than the less
costly one of her white sister. An impulse thus universal must
needs be referred to no manufactured sentiment. In spite of the
Quaker and the rationalist—who find reasons quite conclusive, on
their principles, against the practice—we must consider the impulse
to put on a garb significant of grief, as a perfectly natural one. The
immediate presence of sorrow is absorbing and exclusive. Even the
affection of survivors is of little value to us while bereavement is
fresh. The mind, insanely devoted to one topic, can entertain other
thoughts only as they point to that. It would have the world and
its concerns at a stand, that nothing may hinder the indulgence and
fostering of its misery. Society is nothing to it—the customs of
life are empty or irksome—the living are vulgar—only the dead
precious and sublime. It is in this mood that mourning weeds
the objections to them—they are quite another thing.
The peculiar dignity of grief is that it brings the sufferer into
immediate contact with the supernatural world. No matter how
hard or how world-spoiled the heart—no matter how vitiated the
imagination or the habits—when one that we love with our strong,
human, instinctive love, is stricken down before our eyes, we see the
Hand that deals the blow, and the occasion at once rises to the
grandeur of a divine visitation. To cherish sorrow becomes on this
account honorable; it individualizes us, and raises us above the
common, careless herd; we have had direct communication with
the mysterious Unknown; we have a right to be distinguished.
But this, being a passionate state, does not naturally endure. The
present resumes its hold upon us, and we feel that we are falling
into the line again, not willingly, but by an irresistible power—that
of habit. Mourning garments do something towards arresting this
tendency; they at least serve to remind ourselves and those about
us that we have been among high thoughts—that we have had
heart experiences which in some degree revealed us to ourselves,
and so raised us for the time, above demeaning daily influences.
This being the signification of grief and its symbols, counterfeits
become inevitable. While there is nothing which people repel
more indignantly than the imputation of insensibility under bereavement,
it must be that mourning is often worn as a mere form.
Instead of being a voluntary putting away of the vanity of dress—
a purposed disfiguring of ourselves to the living, out of devotion to
the idea of the dead—it becomes as finical and ostentatious as a
coronation robe, and sits as incongruously on the wearer. Whether
we ought, for the sake of such instances, to condemn the wearing of
mourning altogether, may still be a question. In discussing the
what we may have to say on that topic, for another occasion.
The array of the body for the grave—everywhere a point of
sacred interest—has a meaning, of course, though at our stage of
civilization it is not always an obvious one. In countries more
under the acknowledged influence of primitive ideas than our own,
there are various picturesque and beautiful decorations of the lifeless
form, as flowers, ribbands, and even robes of ceremony. There is an
attempt to throw something like illusion over what is in itself revolting—to
withstand the death-chill as long as possible by suggestions
of life's sunshine. This attempt marks timid, poetical, and sensitive
races; to our sturdiness there is a sort of savage pleasure in facing
death in all his horrible distinctness. We banish whatever looks
like the garb of living men. We choose forms and tints that insure
a cadaverous aspect to the dead, and make him as unlike the
breathing, hopeful yesterday as possible. It would seem almost
sacrilegious to us to lay him in the earth `in his habit as he lived;'
to dress him in rich robes, as for solemn audience, would be so revolting
that we could hardly expect friends to be found adventurous
enough to countenance the last rites. Yet why should this be so?
Why should we put weapons into the hand of death, wherewith to
pierce our own souls, and help the grave to its too easy victory over
the imagination? Why not consent to greater simplicity of reception
of the last enemy? To figure death as a grinning skeleton has
not the moral effect we think it has; it is only a confession of weakness.
The poetical image of a beautiful female folding a sleeping
infant to her bosom, and bearing it softly away, amid the hush of
night, to the distant spheres, inspires loftier and more dutiful
thoughts of the change decreed alike to all, and necessarily beneficent.
We have hardly done more in this paper than express our
opinion that the expression of our dress is nearly as characteristic as
that of our faces; but if we have put our readers upon thinking the
matter out for themselves, we shall be content. We would fain
redeem them from the tyranny of French prints, which, made for
sale, and not faithful transcripts of the graceful and artistically
chaste costume of the Parisian élégante, have done much to introduce
a gaudy and vicious style among us—a style which, in very
many cases, would not bear interpreting on the principles here
advanced.
Note. In treating of the significance of dress, we might be expected to say
something of the so-called `Bloomer' costume, which has excited a good
deal of notice lately, and brought out many opinions pro and con. As to
the propriety of this dress, we never entertained any doubt; as to its grace
and beauty, we remain as yet unconvinced. We look upon it as entirely
modest, and not unfeminine, our prejudices in favor of more flowing drapery
to the contrary notwithstanding; but to cut the figure by a short skirt, is
contrary to all rules of art where dignity is to be expressed. Youthful
lightness and agility are well typified in this way; and accordingly, no one
objects to the `robe succinct' for our half-grown daughters. But when the
matron assumes a costume of similar character, we consider her as sacrificing
beauty to utility—very commendable sometimes, but not necessary
always. The reformers in dress fall into an error common with reformers
—of claiming too much for their plan. It is well to recommend a convenient
dress for its merits, but it is not well to attempt to show that all other
dresses are absurd. The prettiest name yet devised for the new costume is
the `Camilla.' For,
Flies o'er th' unbending corn and skims along the main;'
of the limbs, this classical designation is peculiarly appropriate.
| The evening book, or, Fireside talk on morals
and manners | |