"You shall!" said the Proud Briton.
* * * * *
The Perfect Stranger, under the guidance of the Proud Briton went
everywhere and saw everything.
He saw a sweet, though apparently semi-suffocated, young girl dressed
(or, as _he_ would by unaided judgment have concluded, _un_dressed) for
her first ball.
He saw an elderly fine lady, a high-nosed _dame de par le monde_,
prepared--he would have said, painted and glazed--for a high, social
"function."
He saw a fair _ingénue_, under the eyes of her vigilant mamma and
chaperon, in one evening waltzing with, and trying to win, as more
permanent partners, an elderly but opulent Satyr, and a youthful,
brainless, but titled _Cloten_.
He heard conversation which the talkers themselves laughingly called
_risqué_ (and which he would grimly have called rude) at fashionable
dinner-tables between smirking matrons and leering elderly men.
He witnessed the vagaries of despot Fashion, the (as he considered)
"immodesty" of "full dress," the "impropriety" of flagrant
"cosmeticism," the "unhealthiness" of inadequate or superfluous
clothing, the "cruelty" of corsets, the "vulgarity" and wanton
murderousness of bird-destroying feather trimmings.
These, and many more follies, improprieties and wickedness the Perfect
Stranger was wondering witness of.
"But," observed the Perfect Stranger, "where is the 'Matron's Hiss'?"
"Oh!" replied the Proud Briton, with some embarrassment, "but in all
this there is nothing _new_, you know, nothing unprecedented,
innovating, subversive of accepted Social Laws; nothing 'bad form,' that
is to say unusual, unexpected, unconsecrated by respectable usage. If
there _is_ anything Naughty, it is not New, and what is--possibly--New
is not Naughty. _Therefore_, there is no call for that omnipotent Hiss!"
"Humph! What then _would_ elicit it?" inquired the Perfect Stranger.
"_That_ is a bit difficult to define, off-hand," answered the Proud
Briton, hesitatingly. "Say, for example, a natural waist, or absence of
corsets, high-dress at a Court function, marriage for love--which in
Society or in the tennis-court is equivalent to _nothing_--wearing an
unfashionable hat, or four-buttoned gloves when six are _de règle_,
sounding your g's (when fashion dictates their being dropped), or not
sounding your h's (till fashion tells you to drop _them_), blushing
inopportunely--say, at the stare of a duke or the 'suggestiveness' of a
millionaire--showing sympathy out of your own 'set,' objecting to
tailor-made attire or accepted bathing-costume, discussing questions of
sex in a spirit of serious sympathy instead of through some _décadent_
Art-medium; being earnest, original, or spontaneous in _any_ way, and
thus defying Society's golden rule, 'Do always as others do.'"
"Is that the Masterful Matron's sole rule?" queried the Perfect
Stranger.
"Substantially yes," replied the Proud Briton; "though it is
supplemented, perhaps, by the corollary, 'Never be either the first or
the last to do a new thing.'"
"Then," commented the Perfect Stranger, "the Matron's Hiss would be
silent at the sight of bared shoulders and bust in mid-winter, but would
sound with anserine shrillness at the sight of a lady's lower limbs
comfortably, and conveniently, and healthily, _and_ decently, but
unconventionally, clad in summer on a cycle?"
"Precisely!" said the Proud Briton, though perhaps with less of British
pride than usual.
"Then," said the Perfect Stranger, "I think your Hissing Matron is a
silly, despotic, cackling old goose, who will never save the social
Capitol! But who and what is _that_?"
_That_ was a portly, florid, and high-nosed elderly dame, of pompous
demeanour, and flamboyant raiment, elaborately and obviously
cosmetiqued, and arrayed in a startlingly low-cut garment.
"_That_," said the Proud Briton, with an uneasy smile, "_is_ Mrs.
GRUNDY, the great Goose-Autocrat, the Palladium of Propriety, the Ægis
of Social Morality, the very Masterful Matron of whom we have been
talking."
"Then," demanded the Perfect Stranger, with staggering pertinence, "_Why
does she not Hiss at Herself?_"
The Proud Briton was silent.
* * * * *
THE LORD MAYOR ELECT.--The incoming Lord Mayor has already shown himself
a "Man of Letters" as he communicated a letter of thanks for kind wishes
to pretty well every leading journal. These, when collected, may be
published as a new "_Renals_ Miscellany."
* * * * *
"MATRIMONIAL OBEDIENCE."
Sir,--I should never dream of humiliating myself to the extent of
promising to obey any man. Yet I am a married woman--married, too, in a
Church of England. How did I manage it, perhaps you will inquire? In
this way, which I recommend for the adoption of all women who would
decline to be worse than slaves. Instead of repeating the words "love,
cherish, and obey" after the officiating clergyman, I altered them to
"love cherries and whey," of which I happen to be very fond; so that
whenever my husband (who is a poor creature) reproaches me with breaking
my vow of obedience made at the altar--he does not often do this, as he
is seldom at home--I can, with a clear conscience, affirm that I never
took any vow at all. This astonishes him so much that it makes him
swear, and then go out to his club. A good riddance too!