University of Virginia Library

Delivered at New England Dinner Dec 20/82.

— th Regular Toast.

Woman — God bless her.

The toast includes
the sex, universally: it is to Woman,
comprehensively, wheresoever
she may be found. Let us con-
sider her ways. First, comes the
matter of dress. This is a most
important consideration, in a

subject of this nature, & must
be disposed of before we can
intelligently proceed to examine the profounder
depths of the theme. For text, let
us take the dress of two antipodal
types — the savage woman of
Central Africa, & the cultivated
daughter of our high modern
civilization. Among the
Fans, a great negro tribe, a woman,
when dressed for breakfast, or
home, or to go to market, or go out
a pick-up dinner, or to sit at home,
or to go out calling, or to a simple or to take a simple tea with
friends & neighbors, or to go out
calling, does not wear anything
at all but just her complexion.
That is all; that is her entire
outfit. It is the lightest cos-
tume in the world, but is made
of the darkest material. It has
often been mistaken for mourning.
It is the trimmest, & neatest, & grace-
fulest costume that is now in
fashion; it wears well, is fast
colors, doesn't show dirt; you
don't have to send it down town
to wash, & have some of it come
back scorched with the flat-iron, &
some of it with the buttons ironed
off, & some of it petrified with
starch, & some of it chewed by the
calf, & some of it rotted with
acids, & some of it exchanged
for other customers' things that
haven't any virtue but holiness,
& don't fit you anyhow,
& ten-twelfths of the pieces over-
charged for, & the rest of the dozen
stolen"mislaid." And it always fits; it is the
perfection of a fit. And it is the
handiest dress in the whole realm
of fashion. It is always ready, always "done up."
When you call on a Fan lady &
send up your card, the hired
girl never says, "Please take
a seat, madam is dressing —
she will be down in three-quarters
of an hour." No, madam is
always dressed, always ready
to receive; & before you can get
the door-mat before your eyes, she
is in your midst. And the hired
girl never has to say to a lady
visitor, "Please excuse madam,
she is undressing;" & even if
she ever had to bring such an
excuse at all, she wouldn't say
it in that way: she would say,
"Please excuse madam, she's skins,
not herself!" Then again, the
Fan ladies don't go to church to
see what each other has got on;
& they don't go back home & describe
it & slander it. The farthest they
ever go is to say some little biting
thing about the ultra fashionables

Such is the dark child of
savagery, as to every-day
toilette; & thus, curiously
enough, she finds a point of
contact with the fair daughter
of civilization & high fashion
— who has often has "nothing to wear;"
& thus these widely separated types
of the sex meet upon common
ground. Yes, such is the Fan
woman, as she appears in her
simple, unostentatious every-
day toilette. But on state
occasions she is more dressy.
much more dressy. At a
banquet she wears wears bracelets; at
a lecture she wears earrings & a
belt; at a ball she wears stockings —

& with the true feminine fondness
for display, she wears them on her
arms; at a funeral she wears a
jacket of tar & ashes; at a wed-
ding the bride who can afford
it puts on pantaloons. Thus the
dark child of savagery & the
fair daughter of civilization
meet once more upon com-
mon ground; & these two
touches of nature make
their whole world kin.

Now we will consider
the dress of our other type. A
large part of the daughter of
civilization is her dress — as
it should be. Some civilized

women would lose half their
charm without dress; & some
would lose all of it. The daughter
of modern civilization, dressed
at her utmost best, is a marvel
of exquisite & beautiful art, & ex-
pense. All the lands, all the climes,
& all the arts are laid under tribute
to furnish her forth. Her linen
is from Belfast, her robe is
from Paris, her lace is from
Venice, or Spain, or France;
her feathers are from the remote
regions of Southern Africa,
her furs from the remoter
home of the iceberg & the au-
rora; her fan from Japan,
her diamonds from Brazil,
her bracelets from California,
her pearls from Ceylon, her
cameos from Rome; she has
glass gems & trinkets from
buried Pompeii; & others
that graced comely Egyptian
forms that have been dust &
ashes, now, for forty centuries;
her watch is from Geneva, her
card-case is from China,
her hair is from — from — I
from the store, I believe. That
I don't know where her hair is from; I never
could find out. That is, her other hair — her public
hair, her Sunday hair; I don't
mean the hair she goes to bed with.
Why, you ought to ought to know the hair
I mean; it's that thing which
she calls a switch, & which
resembles a switch as
much as it resembles a
brickbat, or a shotgun,
or any other thing which
you correct people with.
It's that thing which she
twists, & then coils round
& round her head, beehive-
fashion, & then tucks the end
in under the hive & harpoons
it with a hairpin. And that
reminds me of a trifle: any
time time you want to, you
can glance around the
carpet of a Pullman
car & go & pick up a
hairpin; but not to
save your life can you
get any woman in that
car to acknowledge that
hairpin. Now isn't
that strange? But it's
true. The woman who
has never swerved from
cast-iron veracity & fi-
delity in her whole life, will,
when confronted with this
crucial test, deny her hair-
pin. She will deny that
hairpin before a hundred
witnesses. I have stupidly got
into more trouble, & more
hot water trying to
hunt up the owner
of a hairpin in a
Pullman car than by
any other indiscre-
tion of my life.

Well, you can see what the daugh-
ter of civilization is, when she
is dressed; & you have seen what
the daughter of savagery is
when she isn't. Such is Woman,
as to costume. I come, now,
to consider her in her higher &
nobler aspects — as sister, mother, sweetheart, sister, daughter wife, widow,
neighbor, poor relation grass-widow, mother-
in-law, woman's-rights skir-
misher, platform-reader, actress,
hired girl, tele-
graph operator, telephone helloer,
store clerk, washer-woman, school-
marm, queen, queen, book-agent, wet-

nurse, step-mother, boss, pro-
fessional fat woman, pro-
fessional double-headed
woman, professional beauty,
& so forth & so on.

We will simply discuss
these few — let the rest of the
sex wait tarry in Jericho till we come again. First in the list, of
right, & first in

our gratitude, comes a woman who — why,
without whom, I ask you, where
would be those priceless treasures
without which are all that make
our lives worth the living. Yes,
where would be our wives & chil-
dren if there hadn't been any
mother-in-law? She — why, dear me, I've been talking three-quarters of an
hour! I beg a thousand pardons. But
you see, yourselves, that I had a
large contract. I have accom-
plished something, anyway: I
have introduced my subject; & if I
had till next Forefather's' Day, I am
satisfied that I could discuss it as
adequately & appreciatively as a
so gracious & noble a theme de-
serves. But as the matter stands,
now, let us finish as we began
— & say, without jesting, but with
all sincerity, "Woman — God
bless her!"