FASHION.

Fashion made Superior to Health--Fashionable Religion--Unfashionable

Ministers--Votaries of Fashion Despise it--Fashionable Women

Short-lived--Mothers of Great Men Unfashionable--Woman's Greatness

shown in Offspring--Example of Women of Fashion--Apostrophe to

Fashion--Appeal to American Women--Nature in Freedom's

Temple--Fashion Is Monotonous--Woman needs more Freedom.

Woman is accused of being the dupe of Fashion. Her fashionable follies

are paraded in every public print; her dry-goods propensities are talked

of in every circle where she is not truly respected, and in many where

she is; her Parisian proclivities are made the butt of very general

ridicule, and the dignity of her character is not a little lowered by

her too great intimacy with fashion plates and dandy shops. Though,

perhaps, man is as much to blame for this as woman--for she seeks to

please him, and courts his smiles more than the smiles of all the gods

of Fashion--still she must bear her part of the blame--I ought to say

guilt--of this terrible and reckless folly.

It is a great fault with American woman, that they worship so blindly at

the shrine of Fashion. They sacrifice taste and comfort, time and money,

health and happiness, character and life, on this graceless and godless

altar, What shopping--what trimming--what sewing and stuffing and

padding--what bowing and scraping--what simpering and oiling and

scenting--what cooking and spicing and preserving--what eating and

sipping and drinking--what wasting and lying and cheating--what

gossiping, slandering, and abusing--what forging, straining, and

overreaching--what miserable time-serving and eye-serving at the expense

of all that is pure and noble in the human heart and life, are resorted

to keep pace with the changing moods of Fashion! What is there in our

highly civilized life that escapes the palsying touch of Fashion?

_Dress_, what is it? Fashion from head to foot. No matter if it outrages

all physiology, puts hands around the lungs, gauze on the feet, and

hangs multitudinous skirts upon the most vital and yielding portions of

the female system. What of all that? Fashion is superior to health and

life. What if it shrivel a woman into a mummy, and fade her into a

ghost, and plant in her vitals the never-dying worm of consumption! What

is beauty and physical womanhood to Fashion? Who would not rather fade

at twenty-five, and die at thirty, than to be out of the Fashion?

_Food_, what is it good for if it is not in Fashion? If it is not

greased and peppered, shortened and raised, concentrated and almost

distilled, and then taken at hours of _ton_, and in wholesale

quantities, of what avail is it? Better have the dyspepsia than eat

coarse bread! What woman would not rather have a nervous debility than

dispense with hot coffee and strong tea? Then, to refuse roast beef and

baked ham would be very ungenteel! A bilious attack would be much more

fashionable. It would be unwomanly not to have an animal die every time

she was hungry, so that her life might pick the bones of death. It is

very poetical to realize that life flowers on the sepulcher of death.

_Friendship_, its links must be forged on Fashion's anvil, or it is good

for nothing. How shocking to be friendly with an unfashionable lady! It

will never do. How soon one would lose caste! No matter if her mind is a

treasury of gems, and her heart a flower-garden of love, and her life a

hymn of grace and praise, it will not do to walk on the streets with

her, or intimate to anybody that you know her. No, one's intimate friend

must be _à la mode_. Better bow to the shadow of a belle's wing than

rest in the bosom of a "strong-minded" woman's love.

And _Love_, too, that must be fashionable. It would be unpardonable to

love a plain man whom Fashion could not seduce, whose sense of right

dictated his life, a man who does not walk perpendicular in a standing

collar, and sport a watch-fob, and twirl a cane. And then to marry him

would be death. He would be just as likely to sit down in the kitchen as

in the parlor; and might get hold of the wood-saw as often as the

guitar; and very likely he would have the baby right up in his arms and

feed it and rock it to sleep. A man who will make himself useful about

his own home is so exceedingly unfashionable; that it will never do for

a lady to marry him. She would lose caste at once.

_Religion_, too, must be fashionable to be of any worth. What is a

church out of Fashion? Who goes there? God never will hear a prayer in

such a church, nor pardon a penitent, nor give grace to a striving soul.

That antiquated pulpit! Those plain old pews! That queer-looking

gallery! Oh, yes; the pews are very comfortable; the singing sounds most

admirably; the preaching is God's unvarnished truth quickened by divine

love and mercy. Oh, how it would melt one's soul if it was only in a

fashionable church. And then the minister. He is such a plain man, and

says such plain things; he is all the time talking about such every-day

matters, and makes one feel so ashamed because he seems to know just

what we have all been doing and thinking about. Instead of preaching

about Babylon and Belshazzar, and pouring out his eloquence upon the

antediluvians and the glorious company in heaven, he aims every word

right at us, and gets so earnest about our daily sins that he really

makes one's heart ache. It is unpleasant to listen to such a minister

unless one can really forget the world and go with him into his

spiritual idea of life. Then he does not try to please the ladies

enough. He talks to them just as plainly as to the men. He is always

wanting to have them do something that is not pleasant, go to see some

poor person, teach some ragged little urchins, give up some fashionable

way of life, read some book on duty or some homily on fashionable sins.

True, he is a very kind man, the kindest man in all the parish all

admit. He never speaks an unpleasant word to any body; it is said he

spends half his salary for the poor, and visits them a great deal, and

spends much of his time in trying to reform the wicked and dissolute.

The common kind of people think he is a great man, and they flock to

hear him, and love him strangely. But fashionable people do not go there

much, and he gets a poor living. One may know that by his poor dress and

small house. So it is; religion must be done up in fashionable order, or

it is soon out of date in the market. The minister must be a ladies'

man, or the saloon will be more thronged than the church. And to be a

ladies' man it is understood that he must be a fashionable man, a

conformist, a pliant, time-serving, honey-mouthed, smile-faced,

glove-handed, eel-natured kind of a creature, as ready to smile on a sin

as a virtue; whose rebukes are so sugared that they are as agreeable to

take as homeopathic pills. There are multitudes of churches that have

more fashion in them than religion, and enough of worshipers and

ministers who think more of the mode than the matter of worship.

Literature must have on it the brand of Fashion, and even education must

receive the crown stamp of this graceless monarch, or be rejected by the

world and receive no diploma at its hands. It is true that the rule of

Fashion is almost omnific. To be out of Fashion is to be a mark for the

cold finger of scorn from its votaries, and set up as a target for the

shafts of their ridicule. So true is this, that it has become a common

saying, that "one may as well be out of the world as out of the

Fashion!" Yet what is Fashion, what does it amount to? Is one really

more respected, more beloved, more received into the arms of the good,

more caressed by the worthy, for being fashionable? We think not. The

best and most beloved men and women that have ever lived have been far

from the votaries of Fashion. They have lived with little thought and

little conformity to the demands of this prince of weak minds. They have

rather asked what was right, what was best, than what was fashionable.

Conformity to Fashion tends rather to disgust than respect. Deep down in

the hearts of all people there is a sense of the hollowness of Fashion,

and a just loathing of its pretension and show. Even its votaries

secretly despise it, and obey its dictates only because they think they

must. They know its baseness better than we can tell them. True, they do

not fully realize its sinfulness nor wholly appreciate its evils. But

its hollowness and falseness they feel at times most keenly. Else why

their perpetual unrest, their longing, dissatisfied condition of mind?

Oh, if we could pull off the false glitter that lays like a gorgeous

mantle over the fashionable world, we should see such an aching void,

such a palpitating heart of woe, as would make the very stones cry out

for sympathy. Look at a fashionable woman--one woman, a poor, weak

mortal, apprenticed to earth to learn the work of the skies, pupiled

here to be schooled in the great lessons of beauty and goodness written

on all the outward universe and taught by the constant voice of God in

the soul in its best experiences; see such a woman fretting herself

well-nigh to death in chasing the butterfly delusions of Fashion,

seeing them fade in her hands as fast as she grasps them, starving her

soul and dwarfing her mind in the pursuit of such phantoms, enfeebling

her body, irritating her nerves, breaking down her constitution, fading

in early womanhood, and dying ere her years are half lived; what object

is more sorrowful and has higher claims upon our pity? We think it sad

when a woman is thus crushed by neglect or abuse, by the hand of

poverty, by hard toil, or the harder fate of a consuming death at the

hands of a false or brutal companion. But really, why is it sadder than

to die by inches on the guillotine of Fashion? The results are the same

in either case. Abused women generally outlive fashionable ones. Crushed

and care-worn women see the pampered daughters of Fashion wither and die

around them, and wonder why death in kindness does not come to take them

away instead. The reason is plain: Fashion kills more women than toil

and sorrow. Obedience to Fashion is a greater transgression of the laws

of woman's nature, a greater injury to her physical and mental

constitution, than the hardships of poverty and neglect. The slave-woman

at her tasks will live and grow old and see two or three generations of

her mistresses fade and pass away. The washerwoman, with scarce a ray of

hope to cheer her in her toils, will live to see her fashionable sisters

all die around her. The kitchen-maid is hearty and strong, when her lady

has to be nursed like a sick baby. It is a sad truth, that

Fashion-pampered women are almost worthless for all the great ends of

human life. They have but little force of character; they have still

less power of moral will, and quite as little physical energy. They live

for no great purpose in life; they accomplish no worthy ends. They are

only doll-forms in the hands of milliners and servants, to be dressed

and fed to order. They dress nobody; they feed nobody; they instruct

nobody; they bless nobody, and save nobody. They write no books; they

set no rich examples of virtue and womanly life. If they rear children,

servants and nurses do it all, save to conceive and give them birth. And

when reared what are they? What do they even amount to, but weaker

scions of the old stock? Who ever heard of a fashionable woman's child

exhibiting any virtue or power of mind for which it became eminent? Read

the biographies of our great and good men and women. Not one of them had

a fashionable mother. They nearly all sprung from plain, strong-minded

women, who had about as little to do with Fashion as with the changing

clouds. I have given considerable attention to this fact. It is worthy

of the deepest thoughtfulness. Oh, it is a solemn fact that we descend

into our children, in our weakness or strength, in our meanness or

majesty, as we have lived. And what a lean, meagre, moonshine

inheritance does a fashionable mother convey to her offspring! I confess

that to me there is something grand in being the mother of a noble son

or daughter, of a strong and virtuous family of children. If there is a

just human pride, it may live in such a mother's heart. The mothers of

Washington, Adams, and Channing; of Josephine, Hemans, and Stowe, stand

higher in my mind than any kings or queens that ever lived. The proof

of their greatness was in their children. Such sublime inheritances

could not have been given if they had not been possessed. Such grandeur

of mind, such greatness of heart, such majesty of soul, such royal

worth, are everlasting honors to their noble mothers. And I doubt not

but when the vail of flesh is taken from such women, their true

greatness will be visible. By the side of such how will stand the

fashionable mother? In that upper world, souls will rate according to

their real worth, according to the gold that is in them. Oh, if vigorous

health, great virtues, a large heart, and capacious powers of mind are

to be coveted for any thing, it is that they may descend into our

children, and reappear in them, to adorn and bless themselves, us, and

the world, and be a glory unto God in earth and heaven. I had rather

sire a noble son or daughter than win a thousand victories as brilliant

as Napoleon's proudest or sit on the throne of earth's greatest kingdom.

To me there is something so grand in virtue, so priceless and deathless,

so celestial in the powers of a great and good human soul, that to give

existence to one is the cause of a deeper joy and a richer gratitude

than is otherwise granted to mortals here below.

In this light, how stands the tawdry foolery of Fashion? and what place

does the fashionable woman take?

Then the _example_ of a fashionable woman, how low, how vulgar! With her

the cut of a collar, the depth of a flounce, the style of a ribbon, is

of more importance than the strength of a virtue, the form of a mind, or

the style of a life. She consults the fashion-plate oftener than her

Bible; she visits the dry-goods shop and the milliner oftener than the

church. She speaks of Fashion oftener than of virtue, and follows it

closer than she does her Saviour. She can see squalid misery and

low-bred vice without a blush or a twinge of the heart; but a plume out

of Fashion, or a table set in old style, would shock her into a hysteric

fit. Her example! What is it but a breath of poison to the young? I had

as soon have vice stalking bawdily in the presence of my children, as

the graceless form of Fashion. Vice would look haggard and mean at first

sight, but Fashion would be gilded into an attractive delusion. Oh,

Fashion! how thou art dwarfing the intellect and eating out the heart of

our people! Genius is dying on thy luxurious altar. And what a

sacrifice! Talent is withering into weakness in thy voluptuous gaze!

Virtue gives up the ghost at thy smile. Our youth are chasing after thee

as a wanton in disguise. Our young women are the victims of thine

all-greedy lust. And still thou art not satisfied, but, like the

devouring grave, criest for more. Where shall we get the strong women of

the next generation--the women who will live for principle--whose

commanding virtues shall be a tower of strength--whose wisdom shall be a

poem of prophecy, and whose love a hymn of praise? Who will be the

mothers of genius and wisdom, of the manhood and womanhood that shall

redeem mankind? Oh, not from thee, all-degenerating Fashion! shall we

get them. Thy reign is the blast of womanly virtue and manly strength.

Thou art the precursor of destruction. Thou dost intoxicate, bewilder,

and make mad the nations whom thou wouldst destroy. Thou dost lead to

dazzle and delude to ruin. Avaunt, thou grand sycophant of the

nineteenth century, thou vile usurper of the people's throne!

Oh, American women, be exhorted to flee from the sorceress whose

enchantments are binding you in the silken chains of an ignoble

effeminacy. Your weakness weakens our nation and sends a destructive

palsy down into succeeding generations. Your loss of strength is

humanity's loss. How can there be individual identity where Fashion

rules? how individual taste, individual opinion, individual virtue and

character? How can there be genius and talent where Fashion molds the

will and cuts the life to a pattern? How can there be wisdom where

Fashion dictates the mode of thought and the form of utterance? How can

there be greatness where Fashion shapes the growth and prescribes its

bounds? There is nothing in our country so paralyzing to the growth of

mind and the progress of righteous principles as the easy and general

conquest of Fashion over our people. If it were only in matters of dress

and equipage, of outward adornment, that it bore sway, it would not be

so ruinous. But it goes into every department of thought and life, into

opinions, principles, religion. It shapes the creed, prescribes the form

of worship, and puts its excommunicating ban upon all heresy. It enters

the sweet retreat of home and poisons its love and life. It sets up its

proud form in the sanctuary and dishonors worship with its cold

formality. Everywhere it is a godless tyrant. To develop our strength

of body and mind we want freedom. Genius expands its wings in freedom's

airs. Health blooms in freedom's prairie-fields. Wisdom grows in the

hermit-cells of individual thought where no binding chains of custom

cramp the mental powers. Love is always truest and sweetest and noblest

where it is freest. Nature is freedom's temple. No forming shears of

Fashion cuts her patterns. She grows every leaf, and opens every flower,

and solemnizes every bird-marriage, and utters every hymn of praise in

the truthful and innate spontaneity of her universal soul. So humanity

should be free; not free to sin with impunity, but free to dress

according to its own individual taste and comfort; free to live in homes

arranged without respect to Fashion, but agreeable to the wants and

interests of their members; free to eat and swear and act as seemeth

good in each one's mental sight; free to think and speak on all the

great subjects of human interest; to believe and worship by the light of

reason and the inspiration of conscience without fear of the guillotine

of public opinion established by Fashion. The greatest want of our

country is this freedom. We now do every thing so much by rule, that the

rule crams the soul out of every thing done. The rule is always of

Fashion's make. We love and marry, educate and worship, by rule. I would

not recommend an abjuration of all rules. Rules are good so far as they

are just and founded on universal principles. But arbitrary,

time-serving rules are evil. In matters of dress I would have every

woman consult her own taste, form, complexion, comfort, character, and

person. In doing this she may develop her mind, cultivate her taste, and

gratify a reasonable desire to please others. Instead of every one's

dressing alike as Fashion dictates, let each one consult her convenience

and circumstances, and dress as best becomes her ideas of a suitable

wardrobe for herself. If one chooses to wear a dress very long, let her

do it; another to have her dress Bloomerized, let her do it. If one

prefers a close bonnet, another an open; one thin shoes, another thick

boots; one a flowing robe, another a tight dress; one a high-necked,

another a low-necked dress, one a belted, another a bodiced waist, let

it be as each one shall prefer. In a word, let each woman dress herself

and her household as her judgment, skill, and taste shall dictate,

without everlastingly consulting the last fashion-plate. It would be

better that every one was dressed differently from all others, than as

now, all rigged up to order by the last nuncio from Paris. In nature,

variety spreads a curious interest over all her vestiture. In the human

world, Fashion clothes all in a tiresome sameness. To say the least, a

very great improvement might be made by a little more freedom and

courage, and exercise of individual judgment and taste. As it is,

individualism is laid on the shelf, and all are swallowed up in a

fashionable generalization. So in matters of household arrangement, in

the general character and style of equipage, in food, culinary affairs,

social etiquette, and all that pertains to the outward life, to health,

to labor, to individual interests, I would have more freedom, ease, and

flexibility, would see more of individual judgment and peculiarity, more

marks of personal character and affirmative force of will and opinion.

As it is, there is a tedious monotony in all these things. Our houses

are all made and furnished too nearly alike; and so of all our affairs.

A fashionable sameness, somber and dull, spreads over our whole outward

life.

Then, in opinions of men and things, of politics and social relations,

in education, literature, art, in morality and religion, there should be

more freedom, more conformity to individual judgment, more thinking for

self and less by proxy, more personal and less party influence. There is

a terrible tyranny over us in these things. We are cast in the stiff

mold of Fashion. We have our fashionable forms of thought, and seem

afraid to break them. We have our formulas and creeds, and they bind us.

If there were more freedom there would be less error and atheism. Our

minds are all different. No two think exactly alike, or look exactly

alike, or feel exactly alike. Then why should we not be free and use our

own reason for our own purposes and give others the same privilege? Why

be such slavish conformists, and brand as traitors or heretics all who

differ from our party or church?

I would awaken young women to these things. They have their individual

interests, both temporal and eternal. They have their characters and

life-connections to form. They have great and stirring interests to hold

in their hands. They have examples to set and lives to live And they

have a mighty influence to exert in their day both upon the present and

coming generations, both upon this and the future world. The subject of

this essay is one of inexpressible interest to them. Woman is too much

in chains. She wants more freedom. And she will never have it till she

takes it herself. She should covet and seek a higher life. She should

claim her full equality with her brother, man, and strive to show

herself worthy. In woman and her life are wrapped up some of the

greatest interests and issues of humanity. O that each individual woman

could feel it, and live as realizing the solemn fact!

Lecture Five.