LETTER LX.
I have been down to the great city since I last
wrote you. Leaving my quiet Lake home early in the
morning, on Monday last, we reached Thibodeaux village
in time to take the steamer down the La Fourche, which
brought us in sight of the city just at twilight. It was
a superb and bewildering spectacle, as we steamed in the
gathering darkness past a thousand lights from ships,
and streets, and buildings, and the roar of the city came
off to my ears across the water, like the sound of the
surge of old Ocean.
For a country lady, like myself, the bustle of the city
completely confounded my poor head when, the next day,
I walked about shopping, for I had not been beyond the
noise of the woodpecker for twenty months. What surprised
my rustic head was first the new fashions. I saw
the ladies not only did not wear their bonnets still on
their heads, but on their shoulders, and that the style of
walking was to lift the skirts and display an extraordinary
surface to the eyes of passers-by of intensely white
petticoat! At first, I thought it was accidental in the
fair promenader to escape a pond of tobacco saliva on
the walk, and I was only assured of its being “the
fashion” by a remark from Chloe, my waiting woman,
who was walking behind me, dressed in a neat black silk,
and a crimson handkerchief tied turban-wise upon her
head, the usual head-dress of the colored aristocracy.
“Do see, Missus! Did ebber know de like?”
“What is it, Chloe?”
“All de ladieses holds up de dress mighty high, I tink
it fashum, Missy Kate!”
Its prevalence convinced me that Chloe was right. In
half an hour more, what should I see but old Chloe stepping
along with her skirt in her hand, looking as fashionable
as any of them? Imitation is one of the most
remarkable features of the negro race. They originate
nothing, imitation is nature in them and irresistible.
How absurd are fashions! How they can destroy delicacy,
and even modesty! At the house of M. de S—,
where I passed the evening of the day, I saw two young
ladies, who wore their dresses so low in front as to make
me blush for them, who, a year ago, would have blushed
and felt deeply mortified and ashamed to have been
caught by a gentleman in this nude dishabille; yet now
they were smiling, and talking, and seemingly as unconscious
of immodesty, as if they were not compelling the
venerable Roman Catholic Bishop, whom they were talking
with, to drop his eyes to the floor.[1]
American girls are, I believe, purer and more maidenly
delicate than those of any other nation. I pray that
they may continue to merit this distinction. But so long
as they slavishly copy the fashions set by corrupt courts
—by ladies in France and England—and outwardly wear
the livery of vice, they will forfeit a pre-eminence that
they have hitherto enjoyed. These fashions are usually
started by women who have no character; indeed, the
style of the fashion shows how impure the mind was that
originated it. If gentlemen see ladies following such
fashions, they have a right to suppose that they are no
better in heart than in dress; and have characters of the
same value with the inventors of these immodest and unlady-like
fashions. Upon my word, I have no patience
with my fair countrywomen, when they let milliners and
mantua-makers lead them by the chin at their pleasure.
If the Amazonian custom of dropping the dress from the
left shoulder entirely to the waist were introduced, I fear
that there would be found foolish girls enough to adopt
it, throwing delicacy overboard, for the sake of fashion,
as they now do in their immodestly low dresses.
And then the way the bonnets have been, and are still
worn! hanging almost down the back! What should we
think of a gentleman wearing his hat in such a style?
But the girls say: “There are no other sorts of bonnets
made, or to be had at the milliners'!”
Without doubt they speak the truth. But what right
have milliners to compel the wearing of such bonnets
that won't stay on the head? American ladies put
themselves too submissively into the hands of these Mesdames
de la Mode! The only way to destroy their
bondage, and have liberty and independence, is for the
real haut ton ladies to form a “Club of Fashions,”—an
Academie des Modes—choose a President and twenty-four
directors, and appoint committees on the fashions as they
come out, and alter, and add, or take away, as their taste
dictates, before it receives their seal and signature!
They also should have the privilege of originating fashions.
As we are politically independent of Europe,
let us be so in fashions. Let this “Club of Fashions” be
established in the principal cities, with inter-communication
continually kept up by interchanging “reports;”
let it meet four times a year to decide upon the fashions
for each season, both of hats and of dresses, for Winter,
Spring, Summer, and Autumn. Let them issue a Gazette
of fashions, to be published quarterly; and let the
American ladies yield graceful submission to this American
Congress of Modes, and so emancipate themselves
from the corrupt fashions which great ladies, of doubtful
position, in Europe, and milliners of uncultivated taste,
force upon the good sense and pure taste of American
women. Such a club would give a tone to fashion that
it is sadly in want of; and if fashions must rule, let them
rule with authority, dignity, and grace, in the hands of
our lovely, and modest, and tasteful American dames.
I wish you, my dear Mr. —, to advocate this measure
with all your talent and skill. I fear you will think
this Needle is rather more keenly pointed than usual;
but go into a ball-room and see if it is not merited—that
is, if you are not too modest to see.
There is something very amusing in the universality
which an absurd fashion speedily attains. On the first
day of May, 1854, ladies appeared on Broadway with
their bonnets resting on their necks. Three weeks
afterwards girls rejoiced in hanging bonnets by their
combs in Portland, Maine, and in New Orleans, and in
St. Louis; and in two months more the girls of San
Francisco bared the tops of their heads to the sun and
rain; and by this time this ridiculous fashion is in vogue
at the Sandwich Islands! Twenty years ago there were,
in New Orleans, (so an elderly gentleman tells me,) more
veils seen in the streets than bonnets; and even now one
sees this graceful ornament of the head without the
bonnet. Why not drop the bonnet altogether, since it
it is of so
little use, and wear the veil a la Espanola?
Ladies would lose nothing and gain every thing in grace
and elegance.
Our object in going to the city was to lay in stores
and clothing for the plantation, and for my husband to
dispose of his sugar, and also to purchase a few luxuries,
among which was a rocking horse for Harry, and other
playthings. We did not forget all the late publications,
some of which I will give you my unasked opinion of,
when I have read them.
We are preparing for our pic-nic to the Gulf, to be gone
ten days. The party will consist of eleven of us, not
including servants. We start the day after to-morrow.
The young gentlemen who are to join us are busy in
preparing their guns and fishing apparatus. Champagne,
and fruits, and delicacies of all sorts, have been ordered
for the occasion; and we anticipate a merry and adventurous
time. In my next, I will give you an account
of our expedition in full. It will be a sort of campaign;
as we go provided with tents and every convenience for
campaigning out upon the island which we intend to
visit.
