such queer clothes, nobody is so old, or faded, or fat, or "skinny," or
short, or tall, or black, or bow-legged, or so anything at all, that he
or she won't pose for a photograph. So that it may reasonably be said,
that to have lost the instinct to have one's "picture taken" is to have
lost the love of life. Nobody, no doubt, but is interesting to
somebody. And, as Stevenson has said, can any one be regarded as
useless so long as he has a friend?
And when--brother--at length, one has withdrawn forevermore from the
tawdry stage of the cheap photographer's, a last view is taken of one,
as it were, in the grave. Side by side at the cheap photographer's
with the naked baby and with the bride and groom--is the "floral
emblem."
XXII
READING AFTER THIRTY
Somewhere in the mass of that splendid, highly personal journalism of
his, William Hazlitt declares that he was never able to read a book
through after thirty. That penetrating man, Samuel Butler, reflecting
in his "Note-Books" on "What Audience to Write For," says: "People
between the ages of twenty and thirty read a good deal, after thirty
their reading drops off and by forty is confined to each person's
special subject, newspapers and magazines." Thirty again, you see.
We all have friends who have been omniverous readers, persons who, to
our admiration and despair, seem to have read everything in
"literature." It may have struck us, however, as a curious thing that,
except possibly in rare instances, such persons appear not to read much
now, beyond newspapers and magazines. The upshot of what they are able
to say, when you ask them why this is true, is that one simply reaches
a time of life when one "quits reading," as one ceases to dance, or
cools in interest toward the latest fashions in overcoats.
But, undoubtedly there are persons who continue to read, apparently
with unabated industry and zest, no matter how old they may become.
Dr. Johnson, of course, was a constant reader all his life, and would
cheerfully read anything whether it was readable or not. Though did
not he somewhere confess to himself that he did not read things
through? Mr. Huneker, who is well on the richer side of thirty, would
seem to read everything printed about five minutes after it has left
the press, and before anybody else has had a chance to see it. There
are so many capital letters on the pages of his own books that it makes
one dizzy to look at them. Whether or not he reads through all the
books he mentions is of course (as he is a reviewer) a question. And,
then, both Mr. Huneker and the Doctor belong to the trade, so to say.
Another startlingly prodigious reader is Theodore Roosevelt,
hilariously past thirty, and not exclusively identified with literary
"shop." He is continually discovering and vigorously recommending new
poets and short-story writers whom professional critics have not yet
had time to get around to. It does not appear that a fundamental or
organic change in the composition of the human brain which inhibits
reading occurs more or less suddenly at thirty.
Why then do so many reading animals cease at about that time to read?
Butler does not say. Arnold Bennett (was it not?) has asked what's the
use of his reading more, he knows enough. Hazlitt, in his own case,
surmised that the keener interest of writing rather asphyxiated the
impulse to read. And, doubtless, that generally is about the size of
it. As in the cure of the drink habit, a new and more intense interest
will drive out the old. The reader, of course, is a spectator, not an
active participant in the world's doings. After thirty, desirable
citizens of ordinary energy have little opportunity for the role of
noncombatant, and the taste of action and of success, like the taste of
war, makes them impatient with quieter things. Failures read more than
successful men. Bachelors no doubt read much more than husbands. And
fathers seldom are great readers. This last fact may explain the
observation that even college professors do not read fanatically. When
they are "off" awhile they "play with" their children (children are
great enemies everywhere to reading), who are much more real to them
than study.
In one of his later books George Moore chronicles his resolve to
cultivate the habit of reading, to learn to read again. And he sucks
much naive pleasure from the contemplation of this prospective
enterprise; but he finds it very difficult to persevere in it, and
drifts away instead into reveries of what he has read. There is a
thought here, however, to be hearkened to: the idea of learning to read
again.
What is it that happens to one in consequence of his ceasing to read?
He suffers a hardening of the intellectual arteries. There are quaint
old codgers one knows here and there who declare that in fiction there
has "been nothing since Dickens." They are delightful, of course; but
one would rather see than be one. We all know many persons whose
intellectual clock stopped some time ago, and there are people whose
minds apparently froze at about the time when they should have begun to
ripen, and which are like blocks of ice with a fish (or a volume of
Huxley) inside. Nothing now can get in.
At those times of earnest introspection, when one would "swear off"
this or that, would reduce one's smoking, would adopt the principle of
"do it now," and so on--at those times an excellent New Year's
resolution, or birthday resolution, or first day of the month
resolution, would be to re-learn to read, to keep, as Dr. Johnson said
of his friendships, one's reading continually "in good repair."
EPILOGUE
ON WEARING A HAT
There is a good deal to be said about wearing a hat. And yet this
humorous custom, this rich topic, of wearing a hat has been sadly
neglected, as far as I can make out, by scholars, scientists, poets,
composers, and other "smart" people.
Man has been variously defined, as the religious animal, and so on; but
also, to the best of my knowledge and belief, he is the only animal
that wears a hat. He has become so accustomed to the habit of wearing
his hat that he does not feel that he is himself out of doors without
it. Mr. Howells (I think it was) has told us in one of his novels of a
young man who had determined upon suicide. With this intent he made a
mad dash for the sea. But on his way there a sudden gust of wind blew
off his hat; instinctively he turned to recover it, and this action
broke the current of his ideas. With his hat he recovered his reason,
and went home as alive as usual. His hat has come to mean for man much
more than a protection for his head. It is for him a symbol of his
manhood. You cannot more greatly insult a man than by knocking off his
hat. As a sign of his reverence, his esteem, his respect, a man bares
his head. Though, indeed, the contentious Mr. Chesterton somewhere
argues that there is no more reason for a man's removing his hat in the
presence of ladies than for his taking off his coat and waistcoat.
In the more complex social organisms of Europe the custom of lifting
the hat to other men whom one thus acknowledges as superiors is much
more prevalent than in our democratic country. Though in America we
remove our hats in elevators upon the entrance of ladies, a practice
which is not followed in England. It was Mrs. Nickleby who indicated
the extreme politeness of the noble gentlemen who showed her to her
carriage by the celebrated remark that they took their hats "completely
off." We express great joy by casting our hats into the air. If I
wish to show my contempt for you I will wear my hat in your house; if I
wish you to clear out of my house I say: "Here's your hat"; if I am
moved to admiration for you I say: "I take off my hat to you." I
greatly enjoy seeing you run after your hat in the street, because you
are thereby made excessively ridiculous. The comic Irishman of the
vaudeville stage makes his character unmistakable to all by carrying
his clay pipe in his hat band. The English painter, Thomas
Gainsborough, gave his name to a hat. The seasoned newspaper man
displays his cynical nature and complete disillusionment by wearing his
hat at his desk. A hat worn tilted well back on the head indicates an
open nature and a hail-fellow-well-met disposition; while a hat
decidedly tilted over one eye is the sign of a hard character, and one
not to be trifled with. In the literature of alcoholism it is written
that a common hallucination of the inebriate is that a voice cries
after him: "Where did you get that white hat?" Upon assuming office
the cardinal is said to "take the hat." When a man is conspicuously
active in American political life "his hat is in the ring." Whistler
topped off his press-agent eccentricity with a funny hat. The most
idiosyncratic hat at present in America is that which decorates the
peak of Mr. Bliss Carman. The hat-stands in our swagger hotels make a
great deal of money; I know a gentleman who affirmed that a hat which
had originally cost him three dollars had cost him eighteen dollars to
be got back from hat-checking stands. Cheap people evade the hat-boy.
When the present enthusiast for the splendid subject of hats was a
small boy it was the ambition of every small boy of his acquaintance to
be regarded as of sufficient age to possess what we termed a "dice
hat," what is commonly called a "derby," what in England they call a
"darby," what Dickens aptly referred to as a "pot-hat," what, in one
highly diverting form, is sometimes referred to on the other side as a
"billycock." That singular structure for the human head, the derby
hat, one time well-nigh universally worn, has now gone somewhat out of
fashion and been superseded by the soft hat of smart design, though
there are indications, I fear, that the derby is coming in again. When
we were young the soft hat was most commonly worn by veterans of the
Civil War, in a pattern called a "slouch hat" or "Grand Army hat."
Though, indeed, such romantic beings as cowboys in popular ten cent
literature and the late Buffalo Bill wore sombreros, and the
picturesque Mexican a high peaked affair.
Our grandfathers wore "stove-pipe hats"; and the hats of politicians
were one time frequently called "plug hats." This male head-dress even
more extraordinary than the derby, books of etiquette sometimes say you
should not call a "silk hat" but a "high hat." In London but a few
years ago no man ever went into the City with other than a top-hat, or
"topper" as they say there. It is said that the going out of general
favour of the silk hat has been occasioned in a considerable degree by
the popularity of raincoats in preference to umbrellas. If you observe
any great crowd in England to-day you will find in it few hats of any
kind; it is in the main a sea of caps. The American "dude" and the
anti-bellum British "knut" always wore silk hats. Gentlemen at the
British race courses and fine old clubmen of Pall Mall affect a white
or grey top hat, of the sort which was so becoming an ornament to the
late King Edward. The opera hat is said to have startled many persons
who had not seen it before. Intoxicated gentlemen in funny pictures
have always smashed their silk hats. Some men have worn a silk hat
only on the occasion of their marriage. High hats are worn by small
boys in England. The most useful occupation to-day is that which
envolves the wearing of a "tin hat."
The day in the autumn fixed by popular mandate when the straw hat is to
be discarded for the season is hilariously celebrated in Wall Street by
the destruction by the affronted populace of the straw hats of those
who have had the temerity or the thoughtlessness to wear them.
Coloured men in livery stables, however, sometimes wear straw hats the
year round. To the habit generally of wearing a hat baldness is
attributed by some. And the luxuriant hair of Indians and of the
cave-man is pointed to as illustrating the beneficent result of not
wearing a hat. And now and then somebody turns up with the idea in his
head that he doesn't need a hat on it. There is a white garbed
gentleman of Grecian mould who parades Broadway every day without a hat.
It is indisputable that the hats women wear to-day are more beautiful
than they have been for generations, perhaps centuries. Yet this fact
has met with little expression of appreciation. This present
excellence is because women's hats now are the product of intellectual
design. In the '80's the idea was entertained that decoration of a
woman's hat was increased by attaching to it something in the way of
beads or feathers wherever there was a space free. A fashionable
woman's hat to-day may be as simple and, in its way, as effective as
art as a Whistler symphony; a single splotch of colour, it may be,
acting as a foil against a rich mass. Or the hat is a replica, as it
were, of the celebrated design of a period in history. But the erudite
subject of women's hats should not be touched upon without a salute to
that racy model which crowns the far-famed 'Arriet, whose Bank-holiday
attire was so delightedly caressed by the pencil of the late Phil May.
None could forget his tenderly human drawing of the lady with the
bedraggled feather over one eye who has just been ejected by the
bar-man, and who turns to him to say: "Well, the next time I goes into
a public house, I goes where I'm _respected_!"
A hat is distinguished from a cap or bonnet by the possession of a
brim. The modern hat can be traced back to the _petasus_ worn by the
ancient Romans when on a journey; and hats were also thus used by the
earlier Greeks. Not until after the Norman conquest did the use of
hats begin in England. A "hatte of biever" was worn by one of the
"nobels of the lande, mett at Clarendom" about the middle of the 12th
century; and Froissart describes hats that were worn at Edward's court
in 1340, when the Garter order was instituted. The use of the scarlet
hat which distinguishes cardinals was sanctioned in the 13th century by
Pope Innocent IV. The merchant in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales had
"On his head a Flaundrish bever hat";
and from this period onwards frequent mention is made of "felt hattes,"
"beever hattes," and other like names. Throughout mediaeval times the
wearing of a hat was regarded as a mark of rank and distinction.
During the reign of Elizabeth the caprices of fashion in hats were many
and various.
The Puritans affected a steeple crown and broad brimmed hat, while the
Cavaliers adopted a lower crown and a broader brim ornamented with
feathers. In the time of Charles II. still greater breadth of brim and
a profusion of feathers were fashionable features of hats, and the
gradual expansion of brim led to the device of looping or tying up that
portion. Hence arose various fashionable "cocks" in hats; and
ultimately, by the looping up equally of three sides of the low-crowned
hat, the cocked hat which prevailed throughout the 18th century was
elaborated. The Quaker hat, plain, low in crown, and broad in brim,
originated with the sect in the middle of the 17th century. The silk
hat is an article of recent introduction. Though it was known in
Florence about a century ago, its manufacture was not introduced into
France till about 1825, and its development has taken place entirely
since that period. In all kinds of hat-making the French excel; in the
United Kingdom the felt hat trade is principally centred in the
neighbourhood of Manchester; and in the United States the States of New
York and New Jersey enjoy the greater part of the industry.
So much for hats.
End of Project Gutenberg's Walking-Stick Papers, by Robert Cortes Holliday