too heavy for their style of figure, the use of gems. Their ornaments
should hardly ever exceed the natural or imitated flowers of the
most delicate tribes. The snow-drop, lily of the valley, violet,
primrose, myrtle, Provence rose,--these and their resemblances, are
embellishments which harmonize with their gaiety and blooming years.
The colors of their garments, when not white, should be the most tender
shades of green, yellow, pink, blue, and lilac. These when judiciously
selected, or mingled, array the graceful wearer, like another Iris,
breathing youth and loveliness.
Should a young woman, of majestic character, inquire for appropriate
apparel, she will find it to correspond with her graver and more
dignified mien. Her robes should always be long and flowing, and more
ample in their folds than those of her gayer sister. Their substance
should also be thicker, and of a soberer color. White is becoming to
all characters, and not less so to Juno than to Venus; but when colors
are to be worn, I recommend to the lady of majestic deportment, to
choose the fuller shades of yellow, purple, crimson, scarlet, black,
and gray. The materials of her dress in summer, cambrics, muslins,
sarcenets; in winter, satins, velvets, broadcloth, &c. Her ornaments
should be embroidery of gold, silver, and precious stones, with fillets
and diadems of jewels, and waving plumes.
The materials for the winter dresses of majestic forms, and
lightly-graceful ones, may be of nearly similar texture, only
differing, when made up, in amplitude and abundance of drapery. Satin,
Genoa velvet, Indian silks, and kerseymere, may all be fashioned
into as becoming an apparel for the slender figure as for the more
_embonpoint_; and the warmth they afford is highly needful to preserve
health during the cold and damps of winter. When it is so universally
acknowledged, the indispensable necessity of keeping the body in a just
temperature between heat and cold, I cannot but be astonished at the
little attention that is paid to so momentous a subject by the people
of this climate. I wonder that a sense of personal comfort, aided by
the well-founded conviction that health is the only preservative of
beauty, and lengthener of youth, that it does not impel women to prefer
utility before the absurd whims of an unreasonable fashion.
To wear gossamer dresses, with bare necks and naked arms, in a hard
frost, has been the mode in this country, and unless a principle is
made against it, may be so again, to the utter wretchedness of them,
who, so arraying their youth, lay themselves open to the untimely
ravages of rheumatisms, palsies, consumptions, and death.
While fine taste, as well as fashion, decrees that the beautiful
outline of a well-proportioned form shall be seen in the contour of
a nicely-adapted dress, the divisions of that dress must be few and
simple. But, though the hoop and quilted petticoat are no longer
suffered to shroud in hideous obscurity one of the loveliest works in
nature, yet all intermediate covering is not to be banished. Modesty,
on one hand, and Health, on the other, still maintain the law of “fold
on fold.”
Some of our fair dames appear, summer and winter, with no other shelter
from sun or frost, than one single garment of muslin or silk over their
chemise--_if they wear one!_ but that is often dubious. The indelicacy
of this mode need not be pointed out; and yet, O shame! it is most
generally followed. However, common as the crime is, (for who will say
that it is not a sin against modesty?) it is quickly visited with its
punishment. It loses its aim, if it hopes to attract the admiration of
manly worth. No eye but that of a libertine can look upon so wanton a
figure with any other sensations than those of disgust and contempt:
and the end of all her arts being lost, the certainty of an early old
age, chronic pains, and deeply-furrowed wrinkles, is thus incurred in
vain.
No woman, even in the warmest flush of youth, ought to be prodigal of
her charms; she should not “unmask her beauties to the moon;” or unduly
expose the vital fluid, which animates her frame with life and joy. A
momentary blast from the east may pierce her filmy robes, wither her
bloom, and lay her low.
The _Chemise_ (now too frequently banished) ought to be held as sacred
by the modest fair as the vestal veil. No fashion should be able to
strip her of that decent covering; in short, woman should consider it
as the sign of her delicacy, as the pledge of honor to shelter her from
the gaze of unhallowed eyes.
This indispensable vesture being once more appropriated to its ancient
use, we shall next speak of the stays, or _corsets_. They must be light
and flexible, yielding to the shape, while they support it. In warm
weather, my fair reader should wear under her gown and slip a light
cotton petticoat; these few habiliments are sufficient to impart the
softening line of modesty to the defined outline of the form. Health,
also, is preserved by their opposing the immediate influence of the
atmosphere; and none will deny, that enough of female charms are thus
displayed, to gratify the quick, discerning eye of taste.
During the chilling airs of spring and autumn, the cotton petticoat
should give place to fine flannel; and in the rigid season of winter,
another addition must be made, by rendering the outer garments warmer
in their original texture: for instance, substituting satins, velvets,
and rich stuffs, for the lighter materials of summer. And besides
these, the use of fur is not only a salutary, but a magnificent and
graceful appendage to dress.
Having laid it down as a general principle, that the fashion of the
raiment must correspond with that of the figure, and that every sort
of woman will not look equally well in the same style of apparel, it
will not be difficult to make you understand, that a handsome person
may make a freer use of fancy in her ornaments than an ordinary one.
Beauty gives effect to all things; it is the universal embellisher,
the setting which makes common crystal shine as diamonds. In short,
fashion does not adorn beauty, but beauty fashion. Hence, I must warn
Delia, that if she be not cast in so perfect a mould as Celia, she
must not flatter herself that she can supply the deficiency by gayer
or more sumptuous attire. Whims in dress may possibly pass with her,
who, “in Parsian mode, or Indian guise, is still the fairest fair!”
But caprices of this sort, in a plain woman, only render her defects
more conspicuous; and she, who might have been regarded as a very
pleasing girl, in an unobtrusive robe of simple elegance, is ridiculed
and despised when descried in the inappropriate plumage of fancy and
decoration.
Many men, while listening to the conversation of an ordinary, but
sensible young woman, would never see that her hair was harsh, and of
a bad color, were it not interwoven with a wreath of roses. They would
not perceive the brownness and want of symmetry in her bosom, did not
the sparkling necklace attract their eye to the spot. Neither would
it strike them that her hands were coarse and red, did not the pearl
bracelets and circles of rings tell them that she meant they should vie
with Celia’s rose-tipped fingers.
As I recommend a restrained and quiet mode of dress to plain women,
so, in gradation as the lovely of my sex advance towards the vale of
years, I counsel them to assume a graver habit and a less vivacious
air. Cheerfulness is becoming to all times of life, but sportiveness
belongs to youth alone; and when the meridian or the decline of our
days affects it, is ever heavy and out of place.
Let me show you, my fair friends, by conducting you into the Pantheon
of ancient Rome, the images of yourselves at the different stages of
your lives. First, behold that lovely Hebe; her robes are like the
air, her motion is on the zephyr’s wing: that you may be till you are
twenty. Then comes the beautiful Diana. The chaste dignity of the pure
intelligence within pervades the whole form, and the very drapery which
enfolds it harmonizes with the modest elegance, the buoyant health,
which gives elasticity and grace to every limb: here, then, you see
yourselves from twenty to thirty. At that majestic age, when the woman
of mind looks round upon the world; back on the events which have past,
and calmly forward to those which may be to come; all within ought
to be settled on the firm basis of religion and sound judgment; and
either as a Juno or a Minerva she stands forth in the power of beauty
and of wisdom. At this period she lays aside the flowers of youth, and
arrays herself in the majesty of sobriety, or in the grandeur of simple
magnificence.
Contradictory as the two last terms may at first appear, they are
consistent; and a glance on the works of Phidias, and of his best
imitators, will sufficiently prove their beautiful union. Long is the
reign of this commanding epoch of a woman’s age; for from thirty to
fifty she may most respectably maintain her station on this throne
of matron excellence. But at that period, when she has numbered half
a century, then it becomes her to throw aside “the wimple and the
crisping-iron, the ornament of silver, and the ornament of gold,” and
gracefully acknowledging her entrance into the vale of years, to wrap
herself in her mantle of gray, and move gently down till she passes
through its extremest bourn to the mansions of immortality.
Ah! who is there amongst us, who, having once viewed the reality of
this picture, would exchange such blessed relinquishment of the world
and all its vanities, for the bolstered back, enamelled cheek, and
be-wigged head of a modern old woman, just trembling on the verge of
the grave, and yet a candidate for the flattery of men?
It has been most wisely said, (and it would be well if the waning
queens of beauty would adopt the reflection,) that there is a _time_
for _everything_! We may add, that there is a time to be young, a time
to be old; a time to be loved, a time to be revered; a time to seek
life, and a time to be ready to lay it down.
She who best knows how to fashion herself to these inevitable changes
is the only truly, only lastingly fair. Her beauty is in the mind,
and shown in action; and when men cease to admire the woman, they do
better, they revere the saint.
ON THE PECULIARITIES OF DRESS, WITH REFERENCE TO THE STATION OF THE
WEARER.
“Dress drains our cellar dry,
And keeps our larder lean; puts out our fires,
And introduces hunger, frost, and wo,
Where peace and hospitality might reign.”
COWPER.
As there is a propriety in adapting your dress to the different seasons
of your life, and the peculiar character of your figure, there is
likewise a necessity that it should correspond with the station you
hold in society.
This is a subject not less of a moral concern than it is a matter of
taste. By the universality of finery, and expensive articles in dress,
ranks are not only rendered undistinguishable, but the fortunes of
moderate families, and of industrious tradesmen, are brought to ruin:
the sons become sharpers, and the virtue of the wives and daughters too
often follows in the same destruction.
It is not from a proud wish to confine elegance to persons of quality,
that I contend for less extravagant habits in the middle and lower
orders of people; it is a conviction of the evil which their vanity
produces, that impels me to condemn _in toto_ the present levelling and
expensive mode.
A tradesman’s wife is now as sumptuously arrayed as a countess; and
a waiting-maid as gaily as her lady. I speak not of our merchants,
who, like those of Florence under the Medici family, have the fortunes
of princes, and may therefore decorate the fair partners of their
lives with the rich produce of the divers countries they visit; but I
animadvert on our retail shopkeepers, our linen-drapers, upholsterers,
&c. who, not content with gold and silver baubles, trick out their
dames in jewels! No wonder that these men load their consciences with
dishonest profits, or make their last appearance in the newspaper as
insolvent or _felo de se_!
Should the woman of moderate fortune be so ignorant of the principles
of real elegance as to sigh for the splendid apparels of the court, let
her receive as an undeniable truth, that mediocrity of circumstances
being able to afford clean and simple raiment, furnishes all that
is essential for taste to improve into perfect elegance. Riches and
splendor will attract notice, and may often excite admiration; but it
is the privilege of propriety and sweet retiring grace alone to rivet
the eye, and take captive the heart.
“Many there are who seem to shun all care,
And with a pleasing negligence ensnare.”
The fashion of educating all ranks of young women alike, is the cause
why all ranks of women attempt to dress alike. If the brazier’s
daughter is taught to sing, dance, and play, like the heiress to an
earldom, we must not be surprised that she will also emulate the
decorations of her rival. We see her imitate the coronet on Lady Mary’s
brows; and though Miss Molly may possibly not be able to have her’s of
gems, foil-stones produce a similar effect; then she looks for rings,
bracelets, armlets, to give appropriate grace to the elegant arts she
has learnt to practise; and when she is thus arrayed, she plays away
the wanton and the fool, till some libertine of fortune buys her either
for a wife or a mistress.
Were girls of the plebeian classes brought up in the praiseworthy
habits of domestic duties; had they learned how to manage a house, how
to economize and produce comfort at the least expense at their father’s
frugal yet hospitable table, we should not hear of dancing-masters,
and music-masters, of French and Italian masters; they would have no
time for them. We should not see gaudy robes and glittering trinkets
dangling behind the counter, or shining at a Sunday ordinary; we should
not be told of the seduction, or ruin of those,
“Whose modest looks the cottage might adorn,
Sweet as the primrose peeps beneath the thorn.”
The appearance of these young women would not attract the flatterer;
and their simple hearts know not the desires of luxury and vanity.
After having drawn this agreeable picture of her who has well chosen,
I will leave this modern daughter of industry to her discreet and
virtuous simplicity; and once more turn to her whose fortune and
station render greater change and expense in apparel not only
admissible but commendable. A woman with adequate means, when she fills
an extensive wardrobe, encourages the arts and manufactures of her
country, and replenishes the scanty purse of many a laborious family.
At this period of universal talent, articles of dress may be purchased
at a price so insignificant as hardly to be named, or at the vast cost
of half a fortune. A pretty muslin gown may be bought by the village
girl for a few shillings; while a robe of the same material, but of a
finer quality, cannot be purchased by a lady of rank for less than as
many guineas. Indian muslin wrought with gold or silver is nearly as
costly as the stately brocades of our ancestors, but it is infinitely
more elegant.
Indeed, when we look back upon their heavy fashions, we cannot but
see, that in almost every respect the advantage of the change is on
our side. With the stiffness of cloth of gold and embroidered tissues,
have also disappeared the enormous pile of hair, furbelows, feathers,
diamond towers, windmills, &c. which a certain witty poet used to
denominate “the building of the head.” Now, easy tresses, the shining
braid, the flowing ringlet confined by the _antique_ comb, or bodkin,
give graceful specimens of the simple taste of modern beauty. Nothing
can correspond more elegantly with the untrammelled drapery of our
newly-adopted classic raiment than this undecorated coiffure of nature.
While we find that the pious Bishop Latimer remonstrated with the
females of his time against the monstrous superfluity of their
“roundabouts, artificial hips,” &c. &c. and recommended to their use
the “honest _single_ garment;”--our moralists, equally pious, take up
the argument on the contrary side, and justly condemn the too adhesive
and transparent robe worn by our contemporary belles! On this subject
we must dissent from the venerable reformer of the sixteenth century;
and agree with those of the nineteenth, that the _single garment_ (as
the texture now usually is) is not a meet covering for a christian
damsel.
I am sorry to be obliged to call to your observation, my gentle
friends, that the modern fair have deviated widely from that medium
between the Bacchante and the Vestal, which a discreet candidate
for admiration would wish to preserve. The nature of man is prone
to extremes; and flying from the heavy farthingale and the stuffed
petticoat, women assume almost the Spartan guise; and, not meeting
minds in the opposite sex as pure as those in Lacedæmon, no wonder that
the chaste matron, called upon to foretell the consequence, should
remain silent, and veil her head.
“Good sense,” says La Rochefoucault, “should be the test of all rule,
whether ancient or modern. Whatever is incompatible with good sense
must be false.” Modesty should, on the same principle, be the test of
the propriety of all personal apparel or ornament; for whatever is
incompatible with her ordinances, must degrade and betray.
Hence you will perceive, my young readers, that in no case a true
friend or lover would wish you to discover to the eye more of the
“form divine” than can be indistinctly descried through the mysterious
involvements of, at least, three successive folds of drapery. Love,
friendship, and real taste, are alike delicate.
To the exposure of the bosom and back, as some ladies display those
parts of their person, what shall we say? This mode (like every other
which is carried to excess and indiscriminately followed) is not only
repugnant to decency, but most exceedingly disadvantageous to the
charms of nine women out of ten. The bosom and shoulders of a very
young and fair girl may be displayed without exciting much displeasure
or disgust; the beholder regards the too prodigal exhibition, not as
the act of the youthful innocent, but as the effect of accident, or
perhaps the designed exposure of some ignorant dresser. But when a
woman, grown to the age of discretion, of her own choice “unveils her
beauties to the sun and moon,” then, from even an Helen’s charms the
sated eye turns away loathing.
Were we even in a frantic and impious passion to set virtue aside,
policy should direct our damsels to be more sparing of their
attractions. An unrestrained indulgence of the eye robs imagination of
her power, and prevents her consequent influence on the heart. And if
this be the case where real beauty is exposed, how much more subversive
of its aim must be the studied display of an ordinary or deformed
figure!
Judgment, as well as decency, declares, that it is sufficient in the
evening and full-dress to disrobe the back of the neck to the top of
the delicate undulation on the rise of the shoulder. Women, according
to the fineness of their skins and proportions, must accept or decline
the privileges which modesty grants. It is preposterous for her who
is of a brown, dingy, or speckled complexion, to disarray her neck
and arms, as her fairer rival may. A clear brunette has as much
liberty in this respect as the fairest; but not so the muddy-skinned
and ill-formed. A candid consideration of our pretensions on these
subjects, and an impartial judgment, must decide our style of apparel,
and consequently our respectability with the discerning.
Perhaps it is necessary to remind my reader that custom regulates the
veiling or unveiling the figure, according to different periods in the
day. In the morning, the arms and bosom must be completely covered to
the throat and wrists. From the dinner-hour to the termination of the
day, the arms, to a graceful height above the elbow, may be bare; and
the neck and shoulders unveiled as far as delicacy will allow.
As Cicero said of _action_, so say ye of the essentials of your
charms. What is the eloquence of your beauty?--Modesty! What is its
first argument?--Modesty! What is its second?--Modesty! What is its
third?--Modesty!--What is its peroration, the winding up of all
its charms, the striking spell that binds the heart of man to her
forever?--Modesty!!!--In the words of Moore,
“Let that which charms all other eyes
Seem worthless in your own!”
Modesty is all in all; for it comprises the beauties of the mind as
well as those of the body; and happy is he who finds her!
The bosom, which nature has formed with exquisite symmetry in itself,
and admirable adaptation to the parts of the figure to which it is
united, has been transformed into a shape, and transplanted to a
place, which deprives it of its original beauty and harmony with the
rest of the person. This hideous metamorphosis has been effected by
means of newly-invented stays, or corsets, which, by an extraordinary
construction and force of material, force the figure of the wearer into
whatever form the artist pleases.
Curiosity may incline you to wish to know something better of these
buckram machines, that you may form an idea of their intention, use, or
rather inutility. I will satisfy you by describing them to the best of
my power.
The leader in this arming phalanx is usually called _long-stay_. And
its announcement to the female world, if not by drum or trumpet,
furnishes not only much matter for oratory in the advertisement, but
a no inconsiderable fund of merriment to the readers of these curious
performances. For instance, “Mrs. and Miss L. P. have willed it, and it
is done at their house,” &c. &c. Here follows a list of their _improved
long stay_, _pregnant stay_, _divorces_, &c. &c. O! female delicacy,
where is thy blush, when thou lookest on such exposure of the chaste
reserves of thy person!
The first time my eyes met these words so coupled, I was seized with
that honest shuddering which every delicate woman ought to feel at
seeing the parts and situations of her person which modesty bids her
conceal, thus dragged before the imagination of the opposite sex. The
pure must read it with the frown of disgust--the impure with the smile
of ridicule. To this moment, though I find that nothing disrespectful
to modesty was _meant_ by the advertisement, I cannot approve of the
terms in which it is written; for it is my opinion, (and I am so happy
as to be supported in it by the sanction of the wisest moralists,)
that, rob woman of her delicate reserves, and you take from her one of
the best strong holds of her chastity. You deprive her of her sweet
attractive mysteries; you lay open to the eye of love the arcana of her
toilet, the infirmities of her nature; the enchantment is broken, and
“the bloom of young desire, the purple light of the soul’s enthusiasm,”
expire at the disclosure.
To please my still curious readers, I will still further displease
myself, and enter more circumstantially into a detail of these strange
appendages to a female wardrobe.
But before I proceed with my remarks on the _long stay_, (the
ringleader of the rest,) I will so far rescue the intention of its
constructors from any _design_ to excite improper ideas by the words of
their advertisement, as to explain to you the proposed usefulness of
the inventions denominated _pregnant stay_, and _divorces_.
The first is a _corset_ or _stay_ of dimity, or jean, or silk, reaching
from the shoulders down to the waist, and over the hips, to the
complete envelopement of the body. It is rendered of more than ordinary
power by elastic bones, &c. which, introduced between the lining and
covering of the _stay_, bring it into something of the consistency
and shape of an ancient warrior’s hauberk. This new-fashioned coat of
mail for the fair sex is so constructed, as to compress and reduce to
the shape desired the natural prominence of the female figure in a
state of fruitfulness. Some women, who are bold enough to wear this
Procrustean garb during every stage of their pregnancy, affirm that
it preserves their shape without injury to their state of increase.
However this may be with a few hardy individuals, I profess myself no
proselyte to the innovation, as it must necessarily put a degree of
restraint upon the operations of nature, very likely to produce bad
effects both on the mother and the child.