It is not to be supposed that a man is to be styled "dressed" when he
has only got a proper coat on his back; something more than this is
necessary ere he can claim a place in the _beau monde_, or can decently
figure in a _bal pare_. There is no one, indeed, but your mere
Hottentot, who considers himself the pink of fashion solely from the
fact of throwing something, more or less becoming, over his shoulders;
though, by the way, we once heard of a negro chief who, in a state of
unclad majesty, clapped a gold-laced cocked-hat on his head, and then
strutted about with an air of intense satisfaction at the result of his
habilimentary effort. He was not a well-dressed man this chief, any more
than our friend the Frenchman in the diligence; but we will tell you
this aesthetic story, gentle reader.
It was our destiny once--as it has been, too, of many a son of
perfidious Albion--to be journeying across the monotonous plains of
Upper Burgundy, _en route_ for the gay capital. 'Twas a summer morn, and
the breezy call of the incense-breathing lady, as Gray the poet calls
her, came delightfully upon our heated forehead, as we pushed down the
four-paned rattling window of that clumsy typefication of slowness,
misnamed a diligence, to escape from the stifling atmosphere of the
_rotonde_. Our fellow-travellers consisted of a couple of greasy,
black-haired, sallow-faced cures, two farmers' wives with a puking child
each, our own portly self, and the sixth passenger. Now, this sixth
individual, who was in reality the eighth Christian immured in this
quasi Black-hole, was one of those nondescript Parisian existences, to
define whom is almost impossible to those who have never witnessed the
animal. He might have been a _commis-voyageur_, or a clerk in the
passport-office, or the keeper of a small cafe, or an _epicier_, but he
did not look stupid enough for the last. Be this as it may, he was short
rather than tall, lean rather than fat,--in a shabby brown
surtout--smoked and took snuff--had been in Dauphine--thought the
Germans a set of European Chinese--considered a national guard as the
model of a good soldier--kept spitting out of the window from time to
time--stretched his legs most inconveniently against ours--tied his head
up at dark in a dirty bird's-eye blue cotton _mouchoir-de-poche_, and
snored throughout the night. He told us that he had not washed or shaved
himself since leaving Lyons, two days before; and in the morning, just
as we were opening the window, Monsieur yawned, stretched, rubbed his
eyes, spat and spoke--"Sacre nom de cochon! Conducteur! conducteur! vous
m'avez donc oublie! il fallait me faire descendre la bas!--la bas! la!
la! nom de Dieu!"--"Plait-il?" said the _conducteur_ as he came round to
the door, taking his pipe out of his mouth, "qu'est ce que vous voulez,
M'sieur?"--"Je vous avais dit qu'il fallait me faire descendre chez M.
Dubois, et maintenant nous voila a----ou sommes-nous, par exemple?"
"Imbecile! il y a encore trois bonnes lieues a la Pissotte!" and the
angry _conducteur_, who had been roused from his sleep, and climbed over
and round the lumbering vehicle to the back-door, now climbed round and
over again to the _banquette_. The sixth passenger squeezed himself back
into the corner, and resumed:--"M. Dubois ne m'attend pas: d'ailleurs je
ne le connais pas: c'est egal; je me nicherai chez lui pour une huitaine
de jours: j'y ferai de bonnes affaires." All this was of course as
unintelligible to the other passengers as it would have been
uninteresting if we had cared to listen to him:--"Puisqu'il peut y avoir
des dames," he went on, "il faut faire ma toilette." So saying, he took
off his pocket-handkerchief from his head, and wiped his face well with
it, yawned a good deal, and spat incontinently; opened his coat, spread
back and jerked down the lapels; shoved his fingers comb-fashion and
comb-colour through his matted hair till it stood up _a la_ Bugaboo; and
then looked round for admiration. "Ah! je l'avais oublie!" he exclaimed.
Upon this he pulled out a large shabby green pocket-book from his coat;
took off a greasy black stock, displaying a collarless shirt and neck,
upon the tinge of which it would be needless to descant, and then
extracting from the pocket-book two curvilinear pieces of dirty white
paper, which had been folded more than once, and had an ink spot or two
on their surface, applied them to his chin, holding their corners in his
mouth, buckled on his stock again over them, adjusted these pseudo
collars by aid of his watch-back, grinned a mile of approbation, and
exclaimed, "Me voila propre!"
It is not enough to be _propre_ in one article of dress only: you must
preserve a certain aesthetical _tournure_, or else set yourself down
among the frampy multitude for ever. This must be our apology, dear
reader, for thus detaining your attention, and for setting before you
"things unattempted yet in prose or rhyme," which may tend, if properly
applied, to the inappreciable beautification of your own valuable
person. Descend we therefore from the head and trunk of man--a curious
bathos--to his understandings and unmentionables; you know what we mean.
And herein, as in duty bound, draw we a distinction. "We know how to
call all the drawers by name," (if we may so take a liberty with friend
William's prose;) and let us therefore premise that we shall notice the
unmentionable trews, _femoralia_, or _periscelemata_--as the Greeks
would probably have called them, only they wore them not, but like
Highland laddies preferred their own hides--of the virile portion of the
community only. As for those tantalizing appendages of the better
portion of her Majesty's subjects, we leave them in their proper
concealment. We could easily write a volume or two to show that the
custom came on Ormus, or Ind, or Araby the Blest; but criticism would
not be tolerated, and besides--
----"Levius fit patientia
Quidquid corrigere est nefas."
"On s accoutume a tout!"
Go, therefore, aesthetic reader, to Trajan's column at Rome, and amid the
barbaric costumes which adorn it, you will find the prototype of the
modern trouser. Or you need not travel so much out of your way. In the
Townley Gallery there is the figure of Mithras with a fashionable
pantaloon on his legs; and in the Louvre there are two or three
disconsolate-looking barbaric captives, with their trousers flapping
about their shins, and tied round their ankles: these are the originals
of our modern what-d'ye-call'ems. As for the good old buckskins of our
venerated grandsires and governors, they arose in Roman times.
Field-marshal Julius Caesar wore something very near of kin to them under
his military kilt, in that pretty little skirmish wherein he first had
the honour of exchanging stones and darts with our British ancestors;
and from those days down to the present time has this garment maintained
its ground, and proved its utility, with undying pertinacity. Now, we do
not approve of the barbaric trews: that tying of them round the ankles,
though it kept out the cold, was decidedly a Sawney practice: it
militated against the curves of the leg, and destroyed all firmness and
dignity of gait. Far better was the fashion of the middle ages, when the
trouser became a real pantaloon--_a pantalon_ collant, as modern artists
call it, and when the full symmetry of the limb was displayed to the
utmost advantage. This was, no doubt, the acme of perfection that the
garment in question was capable of; and it is to be lamented that the
mode has not kept its position in society more universally. For all
purposes of ceremonial or ornamental dress, this form should still be
rigidly adhered to. Utility and ornament here go hand in hand, or rather
inside each other. No disguisement of natural form is attempted; and a
man's appearance is judged of at its true value. The tight pantaloon is
at once simple, useful, and beautiful. So far for its form. But there is
an immense difficulty in the choice of its substance. If too elastic,
the knee will soon make for itself one of those provoking pudding-bags
that have tended, more than any thing else, to bring the fashion into
disfavour. If too rigid and too frail, you know the catastrophe! We
still remember the case of a fat friend of ours at a fancy-ball! British
manufacturing ingenuity should bestir itself to invent a stuff fit for
satisfactorily solving this vestimental problem of the greatest strain;
and the pantaloon might then once more resume its paramount sway. To
revert to the old buckskin: it is a perfectly respectable, useful, and
satisfactory affair for the purposes to which it is now applied, and
worn with a stout top-boot, and thrown over the side of a gallant horse,
has no superior in the world. It is also a very good thing to put on if
you are going to a new tailor's in town, especially if you can write
Harkaway Hall as your address. The man will set you down for a real
country-squire, and will give you tick for the next twenty years. But if
you want to avoid having your pocket picked, don't wear buckskins as you
go along Piccadilly; buckskins and tops, on foot, are so truly Arcadian
in their appearance, that the swell mob cannot resist the temptation,
and you are pretty sure to be victimized. As for the unmeaning black
things worn with white silk stockings on court-days, and gloried in by
all the beaux of the eighteenth century, they ought to be sent to the
right-about as neither useful nor becoming. It may be all very well for
Spanish matadors and Castilian dancers to wear them; but they were
originally intended to have boots beneath them--so Charles I. wore them
until he borrowed a foolish fashion from France--and from the very cut
and nature of them, they should be worn so still, or abandoned
altogether. We quarrel with them, not on the score of form so much as on
that of inutility and undue contrast of colour. If the thing be dark,
and the stocking light, an effect of cleanliness is attained; but the
magpie appearance immediately prevails. The case is the same as that of
a white waistcoat and a black coat; too glaring, _trop prononce_. If
they are both of the same colour, then the tight and continuous
pantaloon is far more reasonable and becoming, and, for use, any thing
else is better--_experto crede_. The only exception in its favour that
we can make, is for the sportsman and the farmer; for him who joins on a
stout legging or a gaiter, whether of cloth or leather; or, if you wish
to do a bit of Jerry Hawthorn to some friend's Tom or Logic, here is
your garment _de rigueur_;--put on your leggings, your green coats, and
your white hat, and you are complete; but unless you wish to be mistaken
for your friend's butler, or a waiter from your club, do not venture on
the black _culotte_.
The trouser, then--the modern trouser--what are we to say of this? Why,
that it is the most useful, the most comfortable, the most economical,
and one of the least ugly garments ever invented by man. We almost
remember the day, dear reader, when as yet trousers were among the great
unborn; it was only the Duke, and those dashing fellows at his heels,
who imported the idea, we believe from Germany originally, though _they_
used it in the Peninsula. After the battle of Waterloo, no man of any
spirit at all ever wore any thing else for common use. It existed,
certainly, among our honest tars long previously to this epoch; but the
_fashion_ did not come from them; the rage originated with the
Peninsular troops, and was confirmed by the examples of the brilliant
staffs that accompanied the Allied sovereigns to this country in 1814.
It is true that the trouser did not assume its definite and rational
form, such as it now has, all at once; it went through a round of
vagaries indicative of a most diseased state of public taste. At one
time it was all _a la Cosaque_, and you might have made a greatcoat out
of a pair; at another, it was half up the leg, and more than two feet in
circumference; by degrees it got strapped down and cut away into a
sensible kind of shape; and now it has attained the _juste milieu_,
making a happy compromise between the tight symmetry of the pantaloon,
and the flaunting of the sailor's ducks. An immense step in the
improvement of this garment has been made by the introduction of all
that beautiful variety of plaids, and checked patterns, which are so
commonly used; those in wool for winter wear are truly delightful; while
for summer use, the trouser recommends itself to our untiring favour by
the multiplicity of soft light substances which are every where
employed. The trouser is to the pantaloon as the foraging cap is to the
hat--good for all kinds of use, and likely to remain so for an
indefinite period; good for all ranks and for all ages. One canon,
however, should be laid down as to the cut:--no pockets should be
tolerated on any account whatever: they make a man look like a Yankee.
'Tis the most slovenly custom on earth to keep your hands in your
pockets--you deserve to have them sewed in if you indulge in it. And
therefore, to avoid this disagreeable penalty, have your pockets sewed
up.
The next step downwards in the scale of dress brings us to the basis,
foundation, and understanding of mankind--we mean boots and shoes; and
here, being approvers of both "men and women's concise recti," as old
Joe used to say, we must give a word of advice to both sexes; and ye who
groan under the torments of corns, ("bunions" is a nasty word, we always
think of onions when we hear it,) attend to our dictum. If any thing
imperatively demands that utility should be consulted before ornament in
its construction, it is the covering of the foot; whoever goes hunting
in a dancing-pump is a fool, and whoever dances in a shooting-shoe is a
clodhopper. There can be no doubt that the human mind speedily adopted
normal rules of design when first the idea of protecting the foot was
started in the world--and, on the whole, less absurdity has been
evidenced in the pedal integuments than in most other matters of dress.
The old tragic buskin, and the comic sock, the military sandal,
_caliga_, and boot, all did their duty excellently in ancient times: we
have not a word of reproach for them--and their successors in the middle
ages acquitted themselves of their duties in a tolerably satisfactory
manner, though not without some curious flights of fancy. Thus the cross
gartering of the Saxon buskin, boots, or gaiter, or whatever else it
might have been, looks to us truly absurd and uncomfortable, judging
from the caricatured figures of ancient MSS.; but the peaked and tied-up
points of the 14th century, when the toe was fastened to the knee,
strikes us as the _ne plus ultra_ of human folly. How Richard II.'s
courtiers must have gone slopping and spirting about in the mud that
befouled their streets as well as ours! What queer figures they must
have cut on horseback in a rainy day, with the water running off from
the pendulous tips of their shoes! Nevertheless, there was something
good in the arrangement of the upper part of the shoe or half-boot of
those times, and even of earlier days, as any one who reads the
_Art-Union_, or who knows the history of British costume, can tell. It
formed an appropriate termination to the tightly-dressed limb; and when
not too much pointed, prolonged the natural shape of the foot into a
gracefully-curving support. Shoes, in the present sense of the term,
were not then worn: every thing was limited to the elastic half-boots:
but for the huntsman or the horseman, not armed for the tented field, a
sort of brown leather boot coming up to the knee was in common use. This
had no falling tops, and was far removed from the ridiculous Spanish
boot of after days. It was a plain and useful servant to the cavalier,
and became him much better than the ponderous jack-boot of later times.
It is to the Spaniards that we are indebted, if "indebted" be a suitable
term, for the wide-topped falling boot of the sixteenth century; that
inconvenient, no-service thing--good for the stage-players, fancy-ball
men, and fellows like old Hudibras, who crammed a portable larder and
wardrobe into its unfathomable recesses; but for the rough-riding
horseman or the active hunter, a nuisance beyond all description. Boots
such as these may look admirably well in pictures; for when delineated
by a Vandyke, any thing would become graceful; but for actual practice,
they would serve only to catch the rain, and to gall the legs of the
wearer. Their descendant, the top-boot, has reformed itself wonderfully,
and nearly all the inconvenience has been got rid of. Still, the brown
colour of the top, which is no longer the inside of the boot turned
down, as it was once, is an anomaly, and the boot itself ought to be
merged in the plain single-coloured boot which is now much used on the
Continent, though in England patronized only by the Meltonians. For
positive use, the boot ought to come up fully to, or above, the knee, in
order to stand the wear and pressure of the saddle; but for ornament, it
may well be allowed to rise only partially up the leg, and to be, in
short, the beautiful Hessian or Hungarian boot--far the most graceful
covering ever put on the leg of a modern European. That such a truly
elegant boot, so gentlemanlike, so dressy, and yet so thoroughly
serviceable, should ever have gone out of fashion, is to us a
melancholy, though not a needed, proof of the sheer caprice by which
men's fancies are commonly swayed. We suspect, however, that if any
cause more ostensible than mere accident can be alleged for this change,
it is to be traced to some knock-knee'd or spindle-shanked fellow, who
was ashamed to show his mis-shapen legs, and therefore concealed them in
loose trousers. These boots, it is true, were not so well calculated for
campaigning as the smaller ones which still bear the great man's name;
and this may have had something to do with their disuse; nevertheless
the change is to be lamented aesthetically, for the perfect union of
utility and ornament was never so well exemplified as in the Hessian
boot.
With all due respect to the dancing world, or to the world of
dancing-masters, we beg leave to anathematize the light shoe or pump; it
is an ugly, inconvenient, unsuitable thing, fit for a man with a white
waistcoat, gold chain, knee-breeches, &c., but not for a gentleman. The
true aesthetical article is either the elastic half-boot of the middle
ages; fitting on to the pantaloon, or else the thin Wellington boot of
the present day under the trousers. We do not care to see your ribbed
and open-worked silk stockings; such display is not for the sterner sex;
even in his highest moments of ornament, a man should always bear about
him a trace of the useful. To illustrate what we mean--a man is not born
to be a dancing-master, nor a tavern-waiter; a gentleman, more
especially, is intended, from the moment he can run alone, to be ready
for feats of gallantry and hardihood. He should dress accordingly; and,
as a fundamental rule, the reason for which lies deeper than most people
think, a gentleman should always be so attired as that, if occasion
demands, he should be able to mount a horse on the instant and ride for
his life. Now, your modern exquisite in pumps, or your old beau of the
last century in high red-heeled shoes, could do nothing of the kind
without much previous preparation; and we take it to be a sign of their
degenerating manhood. Nine-tenths of the men who take pleasure in shoes
and pumps, are but tailors on horseback; and the old fox-hunter, or the
old dragoon, (good types both in their way of what a man should be,)
love their boots next to their bottle. A slipper and a dressing-gown are
excellent companions, agree well together, and never give their master a
moment's uneasiness; hence their value; similarly, a stout high-low and
a good leathern legging, buttoned well over the ankle beneath, and the
knee above, will carry a man through heather or gorse, on foot or on
horseback, and will prove "marvellous good wear;" they ought to be, as
indeed they commonly are, dear friends to "whoever loves his country."
As for the ladies, truly we have little to say; they have always done
pretty well in the matter of their feet. For them shoes are
indispensably necessary, and, indeed, highly appropriate and
becoming--so, too, are half-boots--and, fixed between these limits, the
fair sex never have gone, nor, perhaps, can go, far astray. The nearer
they keep to the form of nature in the clothing of their feet the
better--it is a rule as true as the day, that a woman can seldom, if
ever, artificially _improve_ her form. But there is one curious
circumstance connected with ladies' shoes, which, it appears, our fair
countrywomen are not competent judges of--at least we appeal to every
man in England not beyond his grand climacteric, and with two eyes in
his head, for the correctness of our views in what we are going to
assert:--a lady's shoe, worn with crossing sandals, gently curving over
the instep and round the ankle, is immeasurably superior to the plain,
quaker-like, old-maid affair, worn with the old-fashioned tie or button.
Did women but know how much these slender lines of riband add to their
appearance, how well the contrast sets off the anatomical beauties of
their feet, they would never put on a shoe without such an appendage. In
the same way, the nicely fitted boot, displaying the exact form of the
arching foot, and deliciously-contrasted in colour with the robe or
stocking, gives a prestige to a lady's foot, which can only be compared
to the effect produced by the Hessian boot upon their lords and masters.
We have nothing to say against the prevailing fashion of ladies'
_chaussures_ worn--even down to the clog and pattern, every thing is
elegant, every thing is proportionably useful.
One hint let us give to all. The secret of a well-fitting shoe, or
rather of a good-looking shoe--and it is upon this principle that all
French shoemakers proceed, but all English cobblers do not--is, that it
should be much longer than the foot itself--at least an inch or an inch
and a half longer. And for these two reasons: first, that, since a
squat, broad, dumpy foot is much uglier than a long thin one, therefore
you may always diminish the _appearance_ of breadth, by adding to the
_reality_ of length; and next, that when the shoe is long, the toes have
plenty of room, and commonly 'tis here that "the shoe pinches." No one
has corns on his heels or the sides of his feet, let his shoes or boots
be as narrow as he can well bear them: it is upon those poor, pent up,
imprisoned, distorted joints of the toes, that the rubs of the world
come, and that the corning process goes on. If you would cure yourself,
reader, of the most obdurate corn, or if you would guarantee your
children from ever having any, let them, and do you yourself, wear
French _chaussures_; or else have the boots, &c., made fitting well to
the foot at the side, and with exactly one inch, at the least, to spare
in length, when standing in them. We'll bet you a hundred to one on the
result: and you may ask any _cordonnier_ in the Rue de Richelieu.
English shoemakers, be it observed, are nearly a century behind their
Gallic brethren in the craft; they work more clumsily--with less art,
less means, and less desire to please; they have no invention in the
higher parts of their science, and they are abominably dear. We do not
wish to disparage any thing in our native country--far from it; but take
the hint, gentle reader; whatever your friends may say about it, always
buy a French shoe or boot in preference to an English one; if of equal
quality, the cut of the French is sure to be better; if not quite so
strong, yet the goodness of the fit makes the thing wear longer. Above
all, whenever you go to Paris, lay in as large a stock of these things
as your purse will allow; they never get worse for age, and they are
cheaper and better there than in any other part of the world. The next
time you meet us in the Park, we'll show you a pair of boots made for us
by Legrand in 1841, which we have ridden in and walked in now three
winters; there is not a crack in them; they, like their master, have
never lost their _soles_, (we can't say so much for our _hearts_,) they
fit us like our own skin, and they cost less than a pound sterling.
_Dear_ old Hoby may go and hang himself!
From the regions of mud, dust, leather, and blacking, we will now
reascend to the higher localities of the human person, and will fasten
ourselves round the reader's neck. Do not be alarmed, we only want to
_catch_ your attention; we will not extend the word to any thing else.
Here, too, ladies are exemplified by their especial privilege from our
impudent scrutiny; their necks when unadorned are adorned the most; if
they are cold, let them put on their boas, or a _fichu_, or muffle up
with their shawls; let them eschew all false collars, let them delight
in good lace, and the matter is settled. But for a man with a bad tie!
we could take him by the throat and throttle him! Here it is our duty
freely to declare our candid opinion, that Beau Brummell and George IV.
were not benefactors to the human race by introducing stiff cravattes
and endless swathes of linen round the region of jugular veins and
carotid arteries; if a man wishes to be comfortable any where, it is
surely in his neck; let old gentlemen with scrofulous chins muffle
themselves up to suffocation if they please, but why should we, who have
nothing the matter with us, and wish to turn our heads _ad libitum_, be
thus girt about and half stifled? Our climate, no doubt, requires some
protection for the neck, and while beards are not worn, a cravat of some
kind or other may be said to be necessary; but if comfort and use can be
combined with elegance and good taste, and yet the old starched thing
got rid of, so much the better. Let us remark, therefore, that we have
done wrong in quitting the fashion of the seventeenth century as to
cravats; we have adopted a stiff and a common material, and we have lost
all opportunity of enjoyment, as well as of ornament. If you ever
indulge in a white choker, good reader, only reflect for a minute on
what you have round your neck--a yard and a half of stuff, the intrinsic
value of which may be a couple of shillings, _plus_ a pennyworth of
starch, _plus_ a neck as thick as an elephant's leg, and as stiff as a
door-post, _minus_ all grace, _minus_ all comfort. But go and look at
the Second Charles at Hampton Court--see how the merry monarch managed
his neck on gala-days. You will observe that he had half a yard of the
finest cambric, as soft as a zephyr, and as warm as swan's-down, tied
once round; and ending before in long deep borders of the most precious
Mechlin lace, worth a guinea or two a-yard, falling gracefully on his
breast, or placed for convenience into a fold of his coat. How much more
sensible, how much more ornamental, how much more noble, such a scarf or
cravat as this, which no shopman's boy could emulate, than the cheap and
ugly thing in which many a man still seems to delight! How admirably did
these bands of rich lace contrast with the silken coats or the polished
cuirasses of their wearers! how truly aristocratic was their appearance!
how entirely without effort, without pretension, and yet how very
distinctive of the type of their wearer! But you will say, if we fail in
the matter of white cravats, surely we excel in that of black-silk ones
and brocaded stocks! We _might_ excel, we allow; but we do not know how
to wear these things. We ought either to limit ourselves to the smallest
possible bow in front, or else we ought to let the square ends of the
scarf be pendant and unconfined. Instead of this, we either put on a
stock with a sham tie, (now all _sham_ things, of what kind soever,
militate against good taste,) or else, to make the most of our scarf, we
fill up the aperture of the waistcoat with an ambitious quantity of
drapery, and we stick therein an enormous and obtrusively ostentatious
pin. This is both vulgar and foolish. If we want a stock, it should be
_perfectly plain--a la militaire_, for it is, in truth, an article of
military attire, worn for the express purpose of giving stiffness and
smartness to the figure. If we want a scarf, do not let us misconceive
the nature of its form, the law of its curves, and huddle it up into an
untidy, unmeaning mass, fit for nothing but to serve as a field of
display for what is commonly cheap and bad jewellery. We may be wrong,
but we strongly suspect that the tie-stock and the large silk scarf were
brought into use by some dirty fellow, whose linens would not stand the
test of public examination; and, indeed, whenever we see a man more than
usually adorned in this way about the neck, we conjecture that all is
not right beneath. A small black or judiciously coloured cravat, with a
very small bow, and just sufficient stiffness to give dignity to the
head--this should be the morning wear of the real gentleman; in the
evening, let him put on the finest fabric of the flax-loom, and the most
expensive lace he can afford to purchase--they will be very becoming,
and will be duly appreciated by the ladies, who know the cost of such
things; all silks and stocks let him leave to men-milliners.
Which side are we to take in the collar question--ups, or downs, or none
at all? We confess ourselves to be practically in a dilemma; although,
aesthetically speaking--and, indeed, from motives of comfort--we have no
hesitation in saying, turn down your collars; they never were meant to
be turned up. But it is now become so much of a French and English
affair, that we shall be suspected of want of patriotism if we do not
say, keep up your collars, and uphold the national dignity! As for the
no-collar view of the subject, much may be said for and against it: it
depends a good deal on your complexion, reader, and also on the colour
of your cravat. If you have got on your cambric and your lace, you need
no further contrast for your physiognomical tint; but if you are wearing
a black kerchief, and you are of a bilious brown and yellow hue, pray
let us see half an inch, at least, of white beneath the lower jawbone.
This point of contrast is the real reason why the collar should, as a
matter of taste, be allowed to lie down on the cravat. It produces
greater effect--it looks cleaner--it is certainly more comfortable. If
the majority of freeborn Englishmen shall ever so far surmount their
prejudices as to take a hint from France, (for 'tis an invention of _la
jeune France_,) we will walk over from our side of the house, and, in
face of the nation and our constituents, will join them.
Collars are connected with wristbands just as the two ends of the
electric telegraph are by the communicating wires, and the satisfactory
intelligence disclosed by the one, that the wearer is a good friend to
his laundress, is, or should be, simultaneously repeated by the other.
Believe us, reader, there is no more distinctive mark of a correct man
than a snowy-white wristband, _always_ to be visible. Here again we must
establish another aesthetical rule of proportion, viz. collars are to
wristbands as laced cravats are to ruffles; and therefore, if you decide
upon taking our advice and indulging in Brussels lace while you sip your
claret, you must also buy lace enough to adorn your wrists, and you will
not repent of the expense or the effect. It is, in truth, a pretty and a
graceful fashion, which, for evening dress, should entirely be
re-introduced, and we anticipate that the ladies would be unanimous in
their approbation.
A few more words on odds and ends of dress, and we have done with civil
costume. Always keep yourself well supplied with gloves; wear them
neither of a blue, nor yet of a green, nor even of a red colour: any
other kind of tint you may, under various circumstances, indulge in.
Always use white, and the finest cambric, pocket-handkerchiefs: you can
thus neither take snuff, nor avoid using a considerable number; do not
regret the expense--the ladies will reward you with their approbation,
and you cannot be mistaken for an American. Whether you be male or
female, gentle reader, do not wear much jewellery--beware of being taken
for one of the swell-mob and the doubtfuls; but if you are a lady, and
wish for jewellery in the evening, choose between pearls and diamonds;
better have a few of these, and good, than whole caskets of topazes and
amethysts. If you are a gentleman, wear only two rings--one for your
lady-love, the other for your armorial bearings--if you have a gold
chain to your watch, keep it, but the less you show of it the better.
Avoid a foolish custom now springing up, of fastening the coat with a
couple of supplementary buttons, attached by a metallic link. This is
the trick of some scoundrel tailor, who sent home a coat too small for
the wearer, and thus persuaded him (he must have been an ass) to tie two
buttons together, and so make both ends meet. It will do very well for a
commercial gent, but not for a gentleman. We need hardly say, be not
fine on a Sunday: dress plainer then than usual, if you would maintain
your dignity; and be not ashamed of an old coat--only let it be clean,
_portez-le bien, soyez bien chausse, bien gante, bien coiffe et vous
n'aurez jamais l'air d'un bourgeois_. Above all things, whether you be
man, woman, or child, remember, that the more you approximate to
uniformity of colour for the whole of your dress, the better. Whether
you prefer white to black, blue to green, or brown to red, no matter.
Stick to the law of aesthetic unity--retain natural and undisguised
contour, breadth and mellowness of colour, ease and dignity of movement,
and you will approximate to perfection.
SUSPIRIA DE PROFUNDIS: BEING A SEQUEL TO THE CONFESSIONS OF AN ENGLISH
OPIUM-EATER.