第39章 ON DRESS AND DEPORTMENT(1)

They say--people who ought to be ashamed of themselves do--that the consciousness of being well dressed imparts a blissfulness to the human heart that religion is powerless to bestow.I am afraid these cynical persons are sometimes correct.I know that when I was a very young man (many, many years ago, as the story-books say) and wanted cheering up, I used to go and dress myself in all my best clothes.If I had been annoyed in any manner--if my washerwoman had discharged me, for instance; or my blank-verse poem had been returned for the tenth time, with the editor's compliments "and regrets that owing to want of space he is unable to avail himself of kind offer;" or I had been snubbed by the woman I loved as man never loved before--by the way, it's really extraordinary what a variety of ways of loving there must be.We all do it as it was never done before.I don't know how our great-grandchildren will manage.They will have to do it on their heads by their time if they persist in not clashing with any previous method.

Well, as I was saying, when these unpleasant sort of things happened and I felt crushed, I put on all my best clothes and went out.It brought back my vanishing self-esteem.In a glossy new hat and a pair of trousers with a fold down the front (carefully preserved by keeping them under the bed--I don't mean on the floor, you know, but between the bed and the mattress), I felt I was somebody and that there were other washerwomen: ay, and even other girls to love, and who would perhaps appreciate a clever, good-looking young fellow.I didn't care; that was my reckless way.I would make love to other maidens.I felt that in those clothes I could do it.

They have a wonderful deal to do with courting, clothes have.It is half the battle.At all events, the young man thinks so, and it generally takes him a couple of hours to get himself up for the occasion.His first half- hour is occupied in trying to decide whether to wear his light suit with a cane and drab billycock, or his black tails with a chimney-pot hat and his new umbrella.He is sure to be unfortunate in either decision.If he wearshis light suit and takes the stick it comes on to rain, and he reaches the house in a damp and muddy condition and spends the evening trying to hide his boots.If, on the other hand, he decides in favor of the top hat and umbrella--nobody would ever dream of going out in a top hat without an umbrella; it would be like letting baby (bless it!) toddle out without its nurse.How I do hate a top hat! One lasts me a very long while, I can tell you.I only wear it when--well, never mind when I wear it.It lasts me a very long while.I've had my present one five years.It was rather old- fashioned last summer, but the shape has come round again now and I look quite stylish.

But to return to our young man and his courting.If he starts off with the top hat and umbrella the afternoon turns out fearfully hot, and the perspiration takes all the soap out of his mustache and converts the beautifully arranged curl over his forehead into a limp wisp resembling a lump of seaweed.The Fates are never favorable to the poor wretch.If he does by any chance reach the door in proper condition, she has gone out with her cousin and won't be back till late.

How a young lover made ridiculous by the gawkiness of modern costume must envy the picturesque gallants of seventy years ago! Look at them (on the Christmas cards), with their curly hair and natty hats, their well-shaped legs incased in smalls, their dainty Hessian boots, their ruffling frills, their canes and dangling seals.No wonder the little maiden in the big poke-bonnet and the light-blue sash casts down her eyes and is completely won.Men could win hearts in clothes like that.But what can you expect from baggy trousers and a monkeyjacket?

Clothes have more effect upon us than we imagine.Our deportment depends upon our dress.Make a man get into seedy, worn-out rags, and he will skulk along with his head hanging down, like a man going out to fetch his own supper beer.But deck out the same article in gorgeous raiment and fine linen, and he will strut down the main thoroughfare, swinging his cane and looking at the girls as perky as a bantam cock.

Clothes alter our very nature.A man could not help being fierce and daring with a plume in his bonnet, a dagger in his belt, and a lot of puffy white things all down his sleeves.But in an ulster he wants to get behind alamp-post and call police.

I am quite ready to admit that you can find sterling merit, honest worth, deep affection, and all such like virtues of the roast-beef-and-plum- pudding school as much, and perhaps more, under broadcloth and tweed as ever existed beneath silk and velvet; but the spirit of that knightly chivalry that "rode a tilt for lady's love" and "fought for lady's smiles" needs the clatter of steel and the rustle of plumes to summon it from its grave between the dusty folds of tapestry and underneath the musty leaves of moldering chronicles.

The world must be getting old, I think; it dresses so very soberly now.We have been through the infant period of humanity, when we used to run about with nothing on but a long, loose robe, and liked to have our feet bare.And then came the rough, barbaric age, the boyhood of our race.We didn't care what we wore then, but thought it nice to tattoo ourselves all over, and we never did our hair.And after that the world grew into a young man and became foppish.It decked itself in flowing curls and scarlet doublets, and went courting, and bragging, and bouncing--making a brave show.