I know it is generally considered decidedly boorish to utter
complaints against the ladies. But I am for the present a bachelor,
and in that capacity claim freedom of speech as my peculiar privilege.
In virtue of my unhappy position, then, I proceed to utter the first
of a series of savage growls, wishing the ladies to understand me as
fully in earnest in this; that when I growl _loud_, I must be supposed
to _mean_ what I growl.
For a month past, single gentlemen of every description have suffered
in common with other fancy stocks, and have remained hopelessly below
par. Those nice, trim, poetical, and polite young beaux, who, when no
great undertaking agitates the female mind, are treated with kindness,
and sometimes with distinction, by young ladies of discretion, are
now, as it were, ruthlessly thrust and bolted out of the pale of
feminine society by an awful demon who reigns supreme,--the Genius of
Dress-making. The other evening, I pulled sixteen different
bell-handles, in a gentlemanly manner, without obtaining admission
into any house for the purpose of making a call; and when I succeeded
in making an entrance at the seventeenth door by falsely representing
myself as the agent of a dry-goods dealer, with a large box of
patterns under my arm, I found the ladies in close conference with
three dress-makers, studying a fashion-plate with an assiduity worthy
of a better cause. A friend of mine, who has hitherto enjoyed the
privilege of dining every day with six ladies, and has derived from
their society great pleasure and profit, informed me yesterday, with a
tear in each eye, that he had left the house for ever, the
conversation being always turned upon topics with which he is utterly
unacquainted, and conducted in a language which is about as
intelligible to him as the most abstruse Japanese or the most classic
Law-Latin.
If we are so fortunate as to obtain, by any stratagem, admission to
hall or anteroom, in the mansions of our fair friends, our olfactories
are regaled with a fragrance which we instinctively associate with
tailors' shops, and which, I am informed, does in fact arise from the
contact of woollen substances with hot flat-irons. As we advance, our
ears are greeted by the resounding clash of scissors. Entering upon
the field of action, our eyes are dazzled by a thousand fragments of
rich and brilliant hues, and our personal safety endangered by swiftly
flying needles and unsuspected pins. Gossip is at an end, for the
thread must be continually bitten off. Dancing is child's play, a
folly of the past. The piano is converted into a table, or an
ironing-board. No games can be suggested but Thread-my-needle, and
Thimble-rig. No books are at hand but Harper, with the fashion-plate
at the end; the newspapers of the day are cut into uncouth shapes; and
conversation (when conducted in English) hangs the unsuccessful
Bloomer reform upon the gibbet of ridicule.
Now, if we would prevent utter disunion in society, something like a
compromise must be effected, and to the ladies belongs the laboring
oar. I use a metaphor which implies that they must do something they
are little accustomed to do; they must make some concession. We have
done all we could do, and I will make one statement which will
convince the world that we bachelors are not obstinate without good
reason. I confess (though it is not without some slight degree of
shame that I own it), that I have, during the last week, consumed the
greater part of every day in ineffectual study, trying to perfect
myself in the terminology of the science of Fashion. I have listened
attentively, and have gathered into a retentive memory sundry
technicalities; but in vain have I submitted these terms of a strange
dialect to the strictest etymological research. In vain have I
conversed upon this subject with the most intelligent dry-goods
dealers. In learning the few idiomatic phrases they employ, I have
experienced only the satisfaction which young students in Greek
literature feel, when they have, with infinite labor, mastered the
_alphabet_ of that rich and copious language.
But there is hope. Experience tells us, this state of things cannot
last for ever. A few weeks, and our sufferings shall be rewarded, our
forbearance repaid. Then shall gay streamers, pendent from rejuvenated
bonnets, float, as of yore, across our promenades, and on the
shoulders of Earth's fairest daughters the variegated mantle be again
displayed. The streets, now deserted by the fair, will ere long
glitter with the brilliant throng, and our sidewalks be swept once
more by the gracefully flowing silk. Taper fingers shall
condescendingly be extended to us, the smile of beauty beam on us, and
witty speech banish our resentful remembrance of incomprehensible
jargon.