The Drawer has never undervalued clothes. Whatever other heresies it may
have had, however it may have insisted that the more a woman learns, the
more she knows of books, the higher her education is carried in all the
knowledges, the more interesting she will be, not only for an hour, but
as a companion for life, it has never said that she is less attractive
when dressed with taste and according to the season. Love itself could
scarcely be expected to survive a winter hat worn after Easter. And the
philosophy of this is not on the surface, nor applicable to women only.
In this the highest of created things are under a law having a much wider
application. Take as an item novels, the works of fiction, which have
become an absolute necessity in the modern world, as necessary to divert
the mind loaded with care and under actual strain as to fill the vacancy
in otherwise idle brains. They have commonly a summer and a winter
apparel. The publishers understand this. As certainly as the birds
appear, comes the crop of summer novels, fluttering down upon the stalls,
in procession through the railway trains, littering the drawing-room
tables, in light paper, covers, ornamental, attractive in colors and
fanciful designs, as welcome and grateful as the girls in muslin. When
the thermometer is in the eighties, anything heavy and formidable is
distasteful. The housekeeper knows we want few solid dishes, but salads
and cooling drinks. The publisher knows that we want our literature (or
what passes for that) in light array. In the winter we prefer the boards
and the rich heavy binding, however light the tale may be; but in the
summer, though the fiction be as grave and tragic as wandering love and
bankruptcy, we would have it come to us lightly clad--out of stays, as it
were.
It would hardly be worth while to refer to this taste in the apparel of
our fiction did it not have deep and esoteric suggestions, and could not
the novelists themselves get a hint from it. Is it realized how much
depends upon the clothes that are worn by the characters in the novels
--clothes put on not only to exhibit the inner life of the characters,
but to please the readers who are to associate with them? It is true that
there are novels that almost do away with the necessity of fashion
magazines and fashion plates in the family, so faithful are they in the
latest millinery details, and so fully do they satisfy the longing of all
of us to know what is chic for the moment. It is pretty well understood,
also, that women, and even men, are made to exhibit the deepest passions
and the tenderest emotions in the crises of their lives by the clothes
they put on. How the woman in such a crisis hesitates before her
wardrobe, and at last chooses just what will express her innermost
feeling! Does she dress for her lover as she dresses to receive her
lawyer who has come to inform her that she is living beyond her income?
Would not the lover be spared time and pain if he knew, as the novelist
knows, whether the young lady is dressing for a rejection or an
acceptance? Why does the lady intending suicide always throw on a
waterproof when she steals out of the house to drown herself? The
novelist knows the deep significance of every article of toilet, and
nature teaches him to array his characters for the summer novel in the
airy draperies suitable to the season. It is only good art that the cover
of the novel and the covers of the characters shall be in harmony. He
knows, also, that the characters in the winter novel must be adequately
protected. We speak, of course, of the season stories. Novels that are to
run through a year, or maybe many years, and are to set forth the
passions and trials of changing age and varying circumstance, require
different treatment and wider millinery knowledge. They are naturally
more expensive. The wardrobe required in an all-round novel would
bankrupt most of us.
But to confine ourselves to the season novel, it is strange that some one
has not invented the patent adjustable story that with a slight change
would do for summer or winter, following the broad hint of the
publishers, who hasten in May to throw whatever fiction they have on hand
into summer clothes. The winter novel, by this invention, could be easily
fitted for summer wear. All the novelist need do would be to change the
clothes of his characters. And in the autumn, if the novel proved
popular, he could change again, with the advantage of being in the latest
fashion. It would only be necessary to alter a few sentences in a few of
the stereotype pages. Of course this would make necessary other slight
alterations, for no kind-hearted writer would be cruel to his own
creations, and expose them to the vicissitudes of the seasons. He could
insert “rain” for “snow,” and “green leaves” for “skeleton branches,”
make a few verbal changes of that sort, and regulate the thermometer. It
would cost very little to adjust the novel in this way to any season. It
is worth thinking of.
And this leads to a remark upon the shocking indifference of some
novelists to the ordinary comfort of their characters. In practical life
we cannot, but in his realm the novelist can, control the weather. He can
make it generally pleasant. We do not object to a terrific thunder-shower
now and then, as the sign of despair and a lost soul, but perpetual
drizzle and grayness and inclemency are tedious to the reader, who has
enough bad weather in his private experience. The English are greater
sinners in this respect than we are. They seem to take a brutal delight
in making it as unpleasant as possible for their fictitious people. There
is R--b--rt 'lsm--r', for example. External trouble is piled on to the
internal. The characters are in a perpetual soak. There is not a dry rag
on any of them, from the beginning of the book to the end. They are sent
out in all weathers, and are drenched every day. Often their wet clothes
are frozen on them; they are exposed to cutting winds and sleet in their
faces, bedrabbled in damp grass, stood against slippery fences, with hail
and frost lowering their vitality, and expected under these circumstances
to make love and be good Christians. Drenched and wind-blown for years,
that is what they are. It may be that this treatment has excited the
sympathy of the world, but is it legitimate? Has a novelist the right to
subject his creations to tortures that he would not dare to inflict upon
his friends? It is no excuse to say that this is normal English weather;
it is not the office of fiction to intensify and rub in the unavoidable
evils of life. The modern spirit of consideration for fictitious
characters that prevails with regard to dress ought to extend in a
reasonable degree to their weather. This is not a strained corollary to
the demand for an appropriately costumed novel.