Why is it that the introduction of a really graceful fashion is
generally met with ridicule and opposition, while ugly modes are
adopted with grave acquiescence and reverent submission?
"Seest thou not what a deformed thief this _Fashion_ is?" "I know that
Deformed; he goes up and down like a gentleman." Yes, we all know
_Deformed_. When any of his family come to us, from England or France
or any foreign country, we recognize the hideous brotherhood, and
extend our welcoming hands; but _Graceful_ must stay with us a long
time to be greeted kindly, and her sisters from foreign parts are
coldly looked upon, or dismissed at once.
To begin at the top,--"the very head and front of the offending." A
gentleman goes into a fashionable hatter's, and the shopman, holding
up for admiration a hat with a crown a foot high, of the genuine
stove-pipe form, and a brim an inch wide, says, "This is the newest
style, Sir." The gentleman walks home with the ugly thing on his head,
but no one stares or laughs. 'Tis a new fashion, but all "take it
easy." A year later, perhaps, the hatter shows him a thing with a brim
a half an inch wider, but rolled up at the sides, and a crown of a
much greater diameter at the top than where it joins the brim,--a
specimen of the bell-crown. This is solemnly donned, and the wearer
has the pleasure of knowing that the head-gear of all his friends is
as hideous as his own. The inverted cone is worn with a sweet,
Malvolio smile. And so "Deformed" has ruled the head of man for as
many years as any of us can number, only ringing the changes, from one
year to another, upon the three degrees of comparison of the word
_ugly_.
But a change takes place; a light, graceful, low-crowned hat, with a
brim wide enough for shelter or for shade, begins to appear as a
fashion;--and how is it received? The clergyman thinks it would be
very unclerical for him to wear it, though it may be as black, and is
as modest, as the rest of his apparel. The young doctor timidly tries
it on, and in his first walk meets the wealthy hypochondriac, his
favorite patient, and the one who is trying to introduce him to
practice, who seriously advises him, as a friend, not to wear that
new-fangled thing,--if the poor hat had only been ugly, there would
have been nothing bad in its _new-fangled_ quality,--as all his
respectable patients will leave him if he dresses so like a fool. The
young lawyer gets one, because he heard an old lady speak of "those
impudent-looking hats," and he is in hopes that impudence, which he
understands is all-important in his profession, and which he is
conscious of not possessing, may come with the hat. A lady goes out
with her son, who is just old enough to have gained a coat, and is
looking for his first hat. The mother has taste and judgment, and the
youth has yet some unperverted affinity with graceful forms left, and
so they choose and buy one of these comfortable and elegant
chapeaux. Just before they reach home, they meet one of their best
friends, a person whom the lady regards most kindly, and the young man
admires and respects, and _he_ greets him with, "Why, Tom! have _you_
got one of those rowdy hats?" And so the stiff, stove-pipe monstrosity
keeps its place, and the only pleasant, sensible, graceful, becoming
hat that the nineteenth century has known, is called all sorts of bad
names, and quiet gentlemen are afraid to wear it.
Has it not been the fate of the shawl, too, the most simple and
elegant wrapper, and comfortable withal, that a man can throw around
him, to be scouted and flouted?
Yes, Deformed! Come on next winter with a white surtout in your hand
that must fit so tightly that your victims can but just screw
themselves into it, with a stiff, square collar touching the ears, and
seven capes, one over the other, "small by degrees and beautifully
less," and all respectable gentlemen will accept it, and virtuously
frown down, as dandies or rowdies, those who will not sacrifice their
shawls to the ugly idol.