Well, as I was saying, when these unpleasant sort of things happenedand I felt crushed, I put on all my best clothes and went out. Itbrought back my vanishing self-esteem. In a glossy2 new hat and a pairof trousers with a fold down the front (carefully preserved by keepingthem under the bed--I don't mean on the floor, you know, but betweenthe bed and the mattress), I felt I was somebody and that there wereother washerwomen: ay, and even other girls to love, and who wouldperhaps appreciate a clever, good-looking young fellow. I didn'tcare; that was my reckless way. I would make love to other maidens3.
I felt that in those clothes I could do it.
They have a wonderful deal to do with courting, clothes have. It ishalf the battle. At all events, the young man thinks so, and itgenerally takes him a couple of hours to get himself up for theoccasion. His first half-hour is occupied in trying to decide whetherto wear his light suit with a cane4 and drab billycock, or his blacktails with a chimney-pot hat and his new umbrella. He is sure to beunfortunate in either decision. If he wears his light suit and takesthe stick it comes on to rain, and he reaches the house in a damp andmuddy condition and spends the evening trying to hide his boots. If,on the other hand, he decides in favor of the top hat andumbrella--nobody would ever dream of going out in a top hat without anumbrella; it would be like letting baby (bless it!) toddle5 out withoutits 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 roundagain now and I look quite stylish6.
But to return to our young man and his courting. If he starts offwith the top hat and umbrella the afternoon turns out fearfully hot,and the perspiration7 takes all the soap out of his mustache andconverts the beautifully arranged curl over his forehead into a limpwisp resembling a lump of seaweed. The Fates are never favorable tothe poor wretch8. If he does by any chance reach the door in propercondition, she has gone out with her cousin and won't be back tilllate.
How a young lover made ridiculous by the gawkiness of modern costumemust envy the picturesque9 gallants of seventy years ago! Look at them(on the Christmas cards), with their curly hair and natty10 hats, theirwell-shaped legs incased in smalls, their dainty Hessian boots, theirruffling frills, their canes11 and dangling12 seals. No wonder the littlemaiden in the big poke-bonnet13 and the light-blue sash casts down hereyes and is completely won. Men could win hearts in clothes likethat. But what can you expect from baggy14 trousers and a monkeyjacket?
Clothes have more effect upon us than we imagine. Our deportmentdepends upon our dress. Make a man get into seedy, worn-out rags, andhe will skulk15 along with his head hanging down, like a man going outto fetch his own supper beer. But deck out the same article ingorgeous raiment and fine linen16, and he will strut17 down the mainthoroughfare, swinging his cane and looking at the girls as perky as abantam cock.
Clothes alter our very nature. A man could not help being fierce anddaring with a plume18 in his bonnet, a dagger19 in his belt, and a lot ofpuffy white things all down his sleeves. But in an ulster he wants toget behind a lamp-post and call police.
I am quite ready to admit that you can find sterling20 merit, honestworth, deep affection, and all such like virtues21 of theroast-beef-and-plum-pudding school as much, and perhaps more, underbroadcloth and tweed as ever existed beneath silk and velvet22; but thespirit of that knightly23 chivalry24 that "rode a tilt25 for lady's love"and "fought for lady's smiles" needs the clatter26 of steel and therustle of plumes27 to summon it from its grave between the dusty foldsof tapestry28 and underneath29 the musty leaves of moldering chronicles.
The world must be getting old, I think; it dresses so very soberlynow. We have been through the infant period of humanity, when we usedto run about with nothing on but a long, loose robe, and liked to haveour feet bare. And then came the rough, barbaric age, the boyhood ofour race. We didn't care what we wore then, but thought it nice totattoo ourselves all over, and we never did our hair. And after thatthe world grew into a young man and became foppish30. It decked itselfin flowing curls and scarlet31 doublets, and went courting, andbragging, and bouncing--making a brave show.
But all those merry, foolish days of youth are gone, and we are verysober, very solemn--and very stupid, some say--now. The world is agrave, middle-aged32 gentleman in this nineteenth century, and would beshocked to see itself with a bit of finery on. So it dresses in blackcoats and trousers, and black hats, and black boots, and, dear me, itis such a very respectable gentleman--to think it could ever have gonegadding about as a troubadour or a knight-errant, dressed in all thosefancy colors! Ah, well! we are more sensible in this age.
Or at least we think ourselves so. It is a general theory nowadaysthat sense and dullness go together.
Goodness is another quality that always goes with blackness. Verygood people indeed, you will notice, dress altogether in black, evento gloves and neckties, and they will probably take to black shirtsbefore long. Medium goods indulge in light trousers on week-days, andsome of them even go so far as to wear fancy waistcoats. On the otherhand, people who care nothing for a future state go about in lightsuits; and there have been known wretches33 so abandoned as to wear awhite hat. Such people, however, are never spoken of in genteelsociety, and perhaps I ought not to have referred to them here.
By the way, talking of light suits, have you ever noticed how peoplestare at you the first time you go out in a new light suit They donot notice it so much afterward35. The population of London have gotaccustomed to it by the third time you wear it. I say "you," becauseI am not speaking from my own experience. I do not wear such thingsat all myself. As I said, only sinful people do so.
I wish, though, it were not so, and that one could be good, andrespectable, and sensible without making one's self a guy. I look inthe glass sometimes at my two long, cylindrical36 bags (so picturesquelyrugged about the knees), my stand-up collar and billycock hat, andwonder what right I have to go about making God's world hideous37. Thenwild and wicked thoughts come into my heart. I don't want to be goodand respectable. (I never can be sensible, I'm told; so that don'tmatter.) I want to put on lavender-colored tights, with red velvetbreeches and a green doublet slashed38 with yellow; to have a light-bluesilk cloak on my shoulder, and a black eagle's plume waving from myhat, and a big sword, and a falcon39, and a lance, and a prancing40 horse,so that I might go about and gladden the eyes of the people. Whyshould we all try to look like ants crawling over a dust-heap? Whyshouldn't we dress a little gayly? I am sure if we did we should behappier. True, it is a little thing, but we are a little race, andwhat is the use of our pretending otherwise and spoiling fun? Letphilosophers get themselves up like old crows if they like. But letme be a butterfly.
Women, at all events, ought to dress prettily41. It is their duty.
They are the flowers of the earth and were meant to show it up. Weabuse them a good deal, we men; but, goodness knows, the old worldwould be dull enough without their dresses and fair faces. How theybrighten up every place they come into! What a sunny commotionthey--relations, of course---make in our dingy42 bachelor chambers43! andwhat a delightful44 litter their ribbons and laces, and gloves and hats,and parasols and 'kerchiefs make! It is as if a wandering rainbow haddropped in to pay us a visit.
It is one of the chief charms of the summer, to my mind, the way ourlittle maids come out in pretty colors. I like to see the pink andblue and white glancing between the trees, dotting the green fields,and flashing back the sunlight. You can see the bright colors such along way off. There are four white dresses climbing a hill in frontof my window now. I can see them distinctly, though it is three milesaway. I thought at first they were mile-stones out for a lark45. It'sso nice to be able to see the darlings a long way off. Especially ifthey happen to be your wife and your mother-in-law.
Talking of fields and mile-stones reminds me that I want to say, inall seriousness, a few words about women's boots. The women of theseislands all wear boots too big for them. They can never get a boot tofit. The bootmakers do not keep sizes small enough.
Over and over again have I known women sit down on the top rail of astile and declare they could not go a step further because their bootshurt them so; and it has always been the same complaint--too big.
It is time this state of things was altered. In the name of thehusbands and fathers of England, I call upon the bootmakers to reform.
Our wives, our daughters, and our cousins are not to be lamed47 andtortured with impunity48. Why cannot "narrow twos" be kept more instock? That is the size I find most women take.
The waist-band is another item of feminine apparel that is always toobig. The dressmakers make these things so loose that the hooks andeyes by which they are fastened burst off, every now and then, with areport like thunder.
Why women suffer these wrongs--why they do not insist in having theirclothes made small enough for them I cannot conceive. It can hardlybe that they are disinclined to trouble themselves about matters ofmere dress, for dress is the one subject that they really do thinkabout. It is the only topic they ever get thoroughly49 interested in,and they talk about it all day long. If you see two women together,you may bet your bottom dollar they are discussing their own or theirfriends' clothes. You notice a couple of child-like beings conversingby a window, and you wonder what sweet, helpful words are falling fromtheir sainted lips. So you move nearer and then you hear one say:
"So I took in the waist-band and let out a seam, and it fitsbeautifully now.""Well," says the other, "I shall wear my plum-colored body to theJones', with a yellow plastron; and they've got some lovely gloves atPuttick's, only one and eleven pence."I went for a drive through a part of Derbyshire once with a couple ofladies. It was a beautiful bit of country, and they enjoyedthemselves immensely. They talked dressmaking the whole time.
"Pretty view, that," I would say, waving my umbrella round. "Look atthose blue distant hills! That little white speck50, nestling in thewoods, is Chatsworth, and over there--""Yes, very pretty indeed," one would reply. "Well, why not get a yardof sarsenet?""What, and leave the skirt exactly as it is?""Certainly. What place d'ye call this?"Then I would draw their attention to the fresh beauties that keptsweeping into view, and they would glance round and say "charming,""sweetly pretty," and immediately go off into raptures51 over eachother's pocket-handkerchiefs, and mourn with one another over thedecadence of cambric frilling.
I believe if two women were cast together upon a desert island, theywould spend each day arguing the respective merits of sea-shells andbirds' eggs considered as trimmings, and would have a new fashion infig-leaves every month.
Very young men think a good deal about clothes, but they don't talkabout them to each other. They would not find much encouragement. Afop is not a favorite with his own sex. Indeed, he gets a good dealmore abuse from them than is necessary. His is a harmless failing andit soon wears out. Besides, a man who has no foppery at twenty willbe a slatternly, dirty-collar, unbrushed-coat man at forty. A littlefoppishness in a young man is good; it is human. I like to see ayoung cock ruffle52 his feathers, stretch his neck, and crow as if thewhole world belonged to him. I don't like a modest, retiring man.
Nobody does--not really, however much they may prate53 about modestworth and other things they do not understand.
A meek54 deportment is a great mistake in the world. Uriah Heap'sfather was a very poor judge of human nature, or he would not havetold his son, as he did, that people liked humbleness56. There isnothing annoys them more, as a rule. Rows are half the fun of life,and you can't have rows with humble55, meek-answering individuals. Theyturn away our wrath57, and that is just what we do not want. We want tolet it out. We have worked ourselves up into a state of exhilaratingfury, and then just as we are anticipating the enjoyment58 of a vigorousset-to, they spoil all our plans with their exasperating59 humility60.
Xantippe's life must have been one long misery61, tied to that calmlyirritating man, Socrates. Fancy a married woman doomed62 to live onfrom day to day without one single quarrel with her husband! A manought to humor his wife in these things.
Heaven knows their lives are dull enough, poor girls. They have noneof the enjoyments63 we have. They go to no political meetings; they maynot even belong to the local amateur parliament; they are excludedfrom smoking-carriages on the Metropolitan64 Railway, and they never seea comic paper--or if they do, they do not know it is comic: nobodytells them.
Surely, with existence such a dreary65 blank for them as this, we mightprovide a little row for their amusement now and then, even if we donot feel inclined for it ourselves. A really sensible man does so andis loved accordingly, for it is little acts of kindness such as thisthat go straight to a woman's heart. It is such like proofs of lovingself-sacrifice that make her tell her female friends what a goodhusband he was--after he is dead.
Yes, poor Xantippe must have had a hard time of it. The bucketepisode was particularly sad for her. Poor woman! she did think shewould rouse him up a bit with that. She had taken the trouble to fillthe bucket, perhaps been a long way to get specially46 dirty water. Andshe waited for him. And then to be met in such a way, after all!
Most likely she sat down and had a good cry afterward. It must haveseemed all so hopeless to the poor child; and for all we know she hadno mother to whom she could go and abuse him.
What was it to her that her husband was a great philosopher? Greatphilosophy don't count in married life.
There was a very good little boy once who wanted to go to sea. Andthe captain asked him what he could do. He said he could do themultiplication-table backward and paste sea-weed in a book; that heknew how many times the word "begat" occurred in the Old Testament;and could recite "The Boy Stood on the Burning Deck" and Wordsworth's"We Are Seven.""Werry good--werry good, indeed," said the man of the sea, "and ken34 yekerry coals?"It is just the same when you want to marry. Great ability is notrequired so much as little usefulness. Brains are at a discount inthe married state. There is no demand for them, no appreciation66 even.
Our wives sum us up according to a standard of their own, in whichbrilliancy of intellect obtains no marks. Your lady and mistress isnot at all impressed by your cleverness and talent, my dearreader--not in the slightest. Give her a man who can do an errandneatly, without attempting to use his own judgment67 over it or anynonsense of that kind; and who can be trusted to hold a child theright way up, and not make himself objectionable whenever there islukewarm mutton for dinner. That is the sort of a husband a sensiblewoman likes; not one of your scientific or literary nuisances, who goupsetting the whole house and putting everybody out with theirfoolishness.
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1
bestow
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| v.把…赠与，把…授予；花费 | |
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glossy
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| adj.平滑的；有光泽的 | |
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maidens
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| 处女( maiden的名词复数 )； 少女； 未婚女子； （板球运动）未得分的一轮投球 | |
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cane
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| n.手杖，细长的茎，藤条；v.以杖击，以藤编制的 | |
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toddle
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| v.（如小孩）蹒跚学步 | |
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stylish
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| adj.流行的，时髦的；漂亮的，气派的 | |
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perspiration
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| n.汗水；出汗 | |
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wretch
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| n.可怜的人，不幸的人；卑鄙的人 | |
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picturesque
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| adj.美丽如画的，（语言）生动的，绘声绘色的 | |
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natty
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| adj.整洁的，漂亮的 | |
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canes
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| n.（某些植物，如竹或甘蔗的）茎( cane的名词复数 )；（用于制作家具等的）竹竿；竹杖 | |
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dangling
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| 悬吊着( dangle的现在分词 )； 摆动不定； 用某事物诱惑…； 吊胃口 | |
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bonnet
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| n.无边女帽；童帽 | |
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baggy
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| adj.膨胀如袋的，宽松下垂的 | |
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skulk
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| v.藏匿；潜行 | |
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linen
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| n.亚麻布，亚麻线，亚麻制品；adj.亚麻布制的，亚麻的 | |
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strut
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| v.肿胀，鼓起；大摇大摆地走；炫耀；支撑；撑开；n.高视阔步；支柱，撑杆 | |
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plume
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| n.羽毛；v.整理羽毛，骚首弄姿，用羽毛装饰 | |
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dagger
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| n.匕首，短剑，剑号 | |
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sterling
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| adj.英币的(纯粹的，货真价实的)；n.英国货币(英镑) | |
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virtues
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| 美德( virtue的名词复数 )； 德行； 优点； 长处 | |
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velvet
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| n.丝绒，天鹅绒；adj.丝绒制的，柔软的 | |
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knightly
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| adj. 骑士般的 adv. 骑士般地 | |
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chivalry
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| n.骑士气概，侠义；（男人）对女人彬彬有礼，献殷勤 | |
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tilt
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| v.(使)倾侧；(使)倾斜；n.倾侧；倾斜 | |
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clatter
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| v./n.(使)发出连续而清脆的撞击声 | |
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plumes
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| 羽毛( plume的名词复数 )； 羽毛饰； 羽毛状物； 升上空中的羽状物 | |
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tapestry
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| n.挂毯，丰富多采的画面 | |
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underneath
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| adj.在...下面，在...底下；adv.在下面 | |
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foppish
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| adj.矫饰的，浮华的 | |
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scarlet
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| n.深红色，绯红色，红衣；adj.绯红色的 | |
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middle-aged
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wretches
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| n.不幸的人( wretch的名词复数 )；可怜的人；恶棍；坏蛋 | |
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ken
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| n.视野，知识领域 | |
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afterward
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| adv.后来；以后 | |
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cylindrical
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| adj.圆筒形的 | |
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hideous
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| adj.丑陋的，可憎的，可怕的，恐怖的 | |
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slashed
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| v.挥砍( slash的过去式和过去分词 )；鞭打；割破；削减 | |
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falcon
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| n.隼，猎鹰 | |
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prancing
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| v.（马）腾跃( prance的现在分词 ) | |
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prettily
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| adv.优美地；可爱地 | |
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dingy
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| adj.昏暗的，肮脏的 | |
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chambers
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| n.房间( chamber的名词复数 )；（议会的）议院；卧室；会议厅 | |
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delightful
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| adj.令人高兴的，使人快乐的 | |
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lark
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| n.云雀，百灵鸟；n.嬉戏，玩笑；vi.嬉戏 | |
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specially
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| adv.特定地；特殊地；明确地 | |
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lamed
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| 希伯莱语第十二个字母 | |
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impunity
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| n.(惩罚、损失、伤害等的)免除 | |
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thoroughly
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| adv.完全地，彻底地，十足地 | |
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speck
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| n.微粒，小污点，小斑点 | |
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raptures
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| 极度欢喜( rapture的名词复数 ) | |
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ruffle
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| v.弄皱，弄乱；激怒，扰乱；n.褶裥饰边 | |
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prate
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| v.瞎扯，胡说 | |
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meek
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| adj.温顺的，逆来顺受的 | |
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humble
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| adj.谦卑的，恭顺的；地位低下的；v.降低，贬低 | |
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humbleness
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| n.谦卑，谦逊；恭顺 | |
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wrath
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| n.愤怒，愤慨，暴怒 | |
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enjoyment
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| n.乐趣；享有；享用 | |
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exasperating
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| adj. 激怒的 动词exasperate的现在分词形式 | |
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humility
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| n.谦逊，谦恭 | |
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misery
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| n.痛苦，苦恼，苦难；悲惨的境遇，贫苦 | |
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doomed
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| 命定的 | |
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enjoyments
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| 愉快( enjoyment的名词复数 )； 令人愉快的事物； 享有； 享受 | |
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metropolitan
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| adj.大城市的，大都会的 | |
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dreary
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| adj.令人沮丧的，沉闷的，单调乏味的 | |
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appreciation
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| n.评价；欣赏；感谢；领会，理解；价格上涨 | |
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judgment
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| n.审判；判断力，识别力，看法，意见 | |
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