Man and his Tailor.
What's wrong with the "Made-up Tie"? I gather from the fashionable
novelist that no man can wear a made-up tie and be a gentleman. He may
be a worthy man, clever, well-to-do, eligible from every other point of
view; but She, the refined heroine, can never get over the fact that he
wears a made-up tie. It causes a shudder down her high-bred spine
whenever she thinks of it. There is nothing else to be said against him.
There is nothing worse about him than this--he wears a made-up tie. It
is all sufficient. No true woman could ever care for him, no really
classy society ever open its doors to him.
I am worried about this thing because, to confess the horrid truth, I
wear a made-up tie myself. On foggy afternoons I steal out of the house
disguised. They ask me where I am going in a hat that comes down over my
ears, and why I am wearing blue spectacles and a false beard, but I will
not tell them. I creep along the wall till I find a common hosier's
shop, and then, in an assumed voice, I tell the man what it is I want.
They come to fourpence halfpenny each; by taking the half-dozen I get
them for a trifle less. They are put on in a moment, and, to my vulgar
eye, look neat and tasteful.
Of course, I know I am not a gentleman. I have given up hopes of ever
being one. Years ago, when life presented possibilities, I thought that
with pains and intelligence I might become one. I never succeeded. It
all depends on being able to tie a bow. Round the bed-post, or the neck
of the water-jug, I could tie the wretched thing to perfection. If only
the bed-post or the water-jug could have taken my place and gone to the
party instead of me, life would have been simpler. The bed-post and the
water-jug, in its neat white bow, looked like a gentleman--the
fashionable novelist's idea of a gentleman. Upon myself the result was
otherwise, suggesting always a feeble attempt at suicide by
strangulation. I could never understand how it was done. There were
moments when it flashed across me that the secret lay in being able to
turn one's self inside out, coming up with one's arms and legs the other
way round. Standing on one's head might have surmounted the difficulty;
but the higher gymnastics Nature has denied to me. "The Boneless Wonder"
or the "Man Serpent" could, I felt, be a gentleman so easily. To one to
whom has been given only the common ordinary joints gentlemanliness is
apparently an impossible ideal.
It is not only the tie. I never read the fashionable novel without
misgiving. Some hopeless bounder is being described:
"If you want to know what he is like," says the Peer of the Realm,
throwing himself back in his deep easy-chair, and puffing lazily at his
cigar of delicate aroma, "he is the sort of man that wears three studs in
his shirt."
The difficulty of being a Gentleman.
Merciful heavens! I myself wear three studs in my shirt. I also am a
hopeless bounder, and I never knew it. It comes upon me like a
thunderbolt. I thought three studs were fashionable. The idiot at the
shop told me three studs were all the rage, and I ordered two dozen. I
can't afford to throw them away. Till these two dozen shirts are worn
out, I shall have to remain a hopeless bounder.
Why have we not a Minister of the Fine Arts? Why does not a paternal
Government fix notices at the street corners, telling the would-be
gentleman how many studs he ought to wear, what style of necktie now
distinguishes the noble-minded man from the base-hearted? They are
prompt enough with their police regulations, their vaccination orders--the
higher things of life they neglect.
I select at random another masterpiece of English literature.
"My dear," says Lady Montresor, with her light aristocratic laugh, "you
surely cannot seriously think of marrying a man who wears socks with
yellow spots?"
Lady Emmelina sighs.
"He is very nice," she murmurs, "but I suppose you are right. I suppose
that sort of man does get on your nerves after a time."
"My dear child," says Lady Montresor, "he is impossible."
In a cold sweat I rush upstairs into my bedroom.
I thought so: I am always wrong. All my best socks have yellow spots. I
rather fancied them. They were expensive, too, now I come to think of
it.
What am I to do? If I sacrifice them and get red spots, then red spots,
for all I know, may be wrong. I have no instinct. The fashionable
novelist never helps one. He tells us what is wrong, but he does not
tell us what is right. It is creative criticism that I feel the need of.
Why does not the Lady Montresor go on? Tell me what sort of socks the
ideal lover ought to wear. There are so many varieties of socks. What
is a would-be-gentleman to do? Would it be of any use writing to the
fashionable novelist:--
How we might, all of us, be Gentlemen.
"Dear Mr. Fashionable Novelist (or should it be Miss?),--Before going to
my tailor, I venture to write to you on a subject of some importance. I
am fairly well educated, of good family and address, and, so my friends
tell me, of passable appearance. I yearn to become a gentleman. If it
is not troubling you too much, would you mind telling me how to set about
the business? What socks and ties ought I to wear? Do I wear a flower
in my button-hole, or is that a sign of a coarse mind? How many buttons
on a morning coat show a beautiful nature? Does a stand-up collar with a
tennis shirt prove that you are of noble descent, or, on the contrary,
stamp you as a _parvenu_? If answering these questions imposes too great
a tax on your time, perhaps you would not mind telling me how you
yourself know these things. Who is your authority, and when is he at
home? I should apologize for writing to you but that I feel you will
sympathize with my appeal. It seems a pity there should be so many
vulgar, ill-bred people in the world when a little knowledge on these
trivial points would enable us all to become gentlemen. Thanking you in
anticipation, I remain . . . "
Would he or she tell us? Or would the fashionable novelist reply as I
once overheard a harassed mother retort upon one of her inquiring
children. Most of the afternoon she had been rushing out into the
garden, where games were in progress, to tell the children what they must
not do:--"Tommy, you know you must not do that. Haven't you got any
sense at all?" "Johnny, you wicked boy, how dare you do that; how many
more times do you want me to tell you?" "Jane, if you do that again you
will go straight to bed, my girl!" and so on.
At length the door was opened from without, and a little face peeped in:
"Mother!"
"Now, what is it? can't I ever get a moment's peace?"
"Mother, please would you mind telling us something we might do?"
The lady almost fell back on the floor in her astonishment. The idea had
never occurred to her.
"What may you do! Don't ask me. I am tired enough of telling you what
not to do."
Things a Gentleman should never do.
I remember when a young man, wishful to conform to the rules of good
society, I bought a book of etiquette for gentlemen. Its fault was just
this. It told me through many pages what not to do. Beyond that it
seemed to have no idea. I made a list of things it said a gentleman
should _never_ do: it was a lengthy list.
Determined to do the job completely while I was about it, I bought other
books of etiquette and added on their list of "Nevers." What one book
left out another supplied. There did not seem much left for a gentleman
to do.
I concluded by the time I had come to the end of my books, that to be a
true gentleman my safest course would be to stop in bed for the rest of
my life. By this means only could I hope to avoid every possible _faux
pas_, every solecism. I should have lived and died a gentleman. I could
have had it engraved upon my tombstone:
"He never in his life committed a single act unbecoming to a gentleman."
To be a gentleman is not so easy, perhaps, as a fashionable novelist
imagines. One is forced to the conclusion that it is not a question
entirely for the outfitter. My attention was attracted once by a notice
in the window of a West-End emporium, "Gentlemen supplied."
It is to such like Universal Providers that the fashionable novelist goes
for his gentleman. The gentleman is supplied to him complete in every
detail. If the reader be not satisfied, that is the reader's fault. He
is one of those tiresome, discontented customers who does not know a good
article when he has got it.
I was told the other day of the writer of a musical farce (or is it
comedy?) who was most desirous that his leading character should be a
perfect gentleman. During the dress rehearsal, the actor representing
the part had to open his cigarette case and request another perfect
gentleman to help himself. The actor drew forth his case. It caught the
critical eye of the author.
"Good heavens!" he cried, "what do you call that?"
"A cigarette case," answered the actor.
"But, my dear boy," exclaimed the author, "surely it is silver?"
"I know," admitted the actor, "it does perhaps suggest that I am living
beyond my means, but the truth is I picked it up cheap."
The author turned to the manager.
"This won't do," he explained, "a real gentleman always carries a gold
cigarette case. He must be a gentleman, or there's no point in the
plot."
"Don't let us endanger any point the plot may happen to possess, for
goodness sake," agreed the manager, "let him by all means have a gold
cigarette case."
How one may know the perfect Gentleman.
So, regardless of expense, a gold cigarette case was obtained and put
down to expenses. And yet on the first night of that musical play, when
that leading personage smashed a tray over a waiter's head, and, after a
row with the police, came home drunk to his wife, even that gold
cigarette case failed to convince one that the man was a gentleman beyond
all doubt.
The old writers appear to have been singularly unaware of the importance
attaching to these socks, and ties, and cigarette-cases. They told us
merely what the man felt and thought. What reliance can we place upon
them? How could they possibly have known what sort of man he was
underneath his clothes? Tweed or broadcloth is not transparent. Even
could they have got rid of his clothes there would have remained his
flesh and bones. It was pure guess-work. They did not observe.
The modern writer goes to work scientifically. He tells us that the
creature wore a made-up tie. From that we know he was not a gentleman;
it follows as the night the day. The fashionable novelist notices the
young man's socks. It reveals to us whether the marriage would have been
successful or a failure. It is necessary to convince us that the hero is
a perfect gentleman: the author gives him a gold cigarette case.
A well-known dramatist has left it on record that comedy cannot exist
nowadays, for the simple reason that gentlemen have given up taking snuff
and wearing swords. How can one have comedy in company with
frock-coats--without its "Las" and its "Odds Bobs."
The sword may have been helpful. I have been told that at _levees_ City
men, unaccustomed to the thing, have, with its help, provided comedy for
the rest of the company.
But I take it this is not the comedy our dramatist had in mind.
Why not an Exhibition of Gentlemen?
It seems a pity that comedy should disappear from among us. If it depend
entirely on swords and snuff-boxes, would it not be worth the while of
the Society of Authors to keep a few gentlemen specially trained? Maybe
some sympathetic theatrical manager would lend us costumes of the
eighteenth century. We might provide them with swords and snuff-boxes.
They might meet, say, once a week, in a Queen Anne drawing-room,
especially prepared by Gillow, and go through their tricks. Authors
seeking high-class comedy might be admitted to a gallery.
Perhaps this explains why old-fashioned readers complain that we do not
give them human nature. How can we? Ladies and gentlemen nowadays don't
wear the proper clothes. Evidently it all depends upon the clothes.