Gala-Days [72]
rise and no fall, a monotonous discord, no soul, no feeling, and no counterfeit of it, loud, positive, angular, and awful. Indeed, I do not see how we New-Englanders are ever to rid ourselves of the reproach of our voices. The number of people who speak well is not large enough materially to influence the rest. Teachers do not teach speaking in school,--they certainly did not in my day, and I have no reason to suppose from results that they do now,--and parents do not teach it at home, for the simple reason, I suppose, that they do not know it themselves. We can all perceive the discord; but how to produce concord, that is the question. This one thing, however, is practicable if sweetness cannot be increased, volume can be diminished. If you cannot make the right kind of noise, you can at least make as little as possible of the wrong kind. Often the discord extends to manners. Public conveyances and public places produce so many girls who are not gentle, retiring, shady, attractive. They are flingy and sharp and saucy, without being piquant. They take on airs without having the beauty or the brilliancy which alone makes airs delightful. They agonize to make an impression, and they make it, but not always in the line of their intent. Setting out to be picturesque, they become uncouth. They are ridiculous when they mean to be interesting, and silly when they try to be playful. If they would only leave off attitudinizing, one would he appeased. It may not be possible to acquire agreeable manners, any more than a pleasant voice; but it is possible to be quiet. But no suspicion of defect seems ever to have penetrated the bosoms of such girls. They act as if they thought attention was admiration. Levity they mistake for vivacity. Peevishness is elegance. Boldness is dignity. Rudeness is savoir faire Boisterousness is their vulgate for youthful high spirits.
And what, let me ask just here, is the meaning of the small waists that girls are cramming their lives into? I thought tight-lacing was an effete superstition clean gone forever. But again and again, last summer, I saw this wretched disease, this cacoethes pectus vinciendi, breaking out with renewed and increasing virulence; and I heard women--yes, grown-up women, old women--talking about the "Grecian bend," and the tapering line of the slender, willowy waist. Now, girls, when you have laced yourselves into a wand, do not be so infatuated as to suppose that any sensible man looks at you and thinks of willows. Not in the least. Probably he is wondering how you manage to breathe. As for the Grecian bend, you have been told over and over again that no Grecian woman, whether in the flesh or in the stone, ever bent such a figure,--spoiled if it was originally good, made worse if it was originally bad. You wish to be beautiful, and it is a laudable wish; but nothing is beautiful which is not loyal, truthful, natural. You need not take my simple word for it; I do not believe a doctor can anywhere be found who will say that compression is healthful, or a sculptor who will say that it is beautiful. Which now is the higher art, the sculptor's or the mantua-maker's? Which is most likely to be right, the man (or the woman) who devotes his life to the study of beauty and strength, both in essence and expression, or the woman who is concerned only with clipping and trimming? Which do you think takes the more correct view, he who looks upon the human body as God's handiwork, a thing to be reverenced, to be studied, to be obeyed, or one who admires it according as it varies more or less from the standard of a fashion-plate, who considers it as entirely subordinate to the prevailing mode, and who hesitates at no devices to bring it down to the desired and utterly arbitrary dimensions? This is what you do; you give yourselves up into the hands, or you yield submissively to the opinions, of people who make no account whatever of the form or the functions of nature; who have never made their profession a liberal one; who never seem to suspect that God had anything
And what, let me ask just here, is the meaning of the small waists that girls are cramming their lives into? I thought tight-lacing was an effete superstition clean gone forever. But again and again, last summer, I saw this wretched disease, this cacoethes pectus vinciendi, breaking out with renewed and increasing virulence; and I heard women--yes, grown-up women, old women--talking about the "Grecian bend," and the tapering line of the slender, willowy waist. Now, girls, when you have laced yourselves into a wand, do not be so infatuated as to suppose that any sensible man looks at you and thinks of willows. Not in the least. Probably he is wondering how you manage to breathe. As for the Grecian bend, you have been told over and over again that no Grecian woman, whether in the flesh or in the stone, ever bent such a figure,--spoiled if it was originally good, made worse if it was originally bad. You wish to be beautiful, and it is a laudable wish; but nothing is beautiful which is not loyal, truthful, natural. You need not take my simple word for it; I do not believe a doctor can anywhere be found who will say that compression is healthful, or a sculptor who will say that it is beautiful. Which now is the higher art, the sculptor's or the mantua-maker's? Which is most likely to be right, the man (or the woman) who devotes his life to the study of beauty and strength, both in essence and expression, or the woman who is concerned only with clipping and trimming? Which do you think takes the more correct view, he who looks upon the human body as God's handiwork, a thing to be reverenced, to be studied, to be obeyed, or one who admires it according as it varies more or less from the standard of a fashion-plate, who considers it as entirely subordinate to the prevailing mode, and who hesitates at no devices to bring it down to the desired and utterly arbitrary dimensions? This is what you do; you give yourselves up into the hands, or you yield submissively to the opinions, of people who make no account whatever of the form or the functions of nature; who have never made their profession a liberal one; who never seem to suspect that God had anything