CHAPTER XIX

DO WOMEN DRESS TO PLEASE MEN?

The female attire--Women dress for breakfast and undress for dinner--You don't know them from Eve--Society likes to be exposed--How French, English, German and American women dress--Simplicity in dress the coquetry of some women--What would happen if two women remained alone on the face of the earth.

Never in the history of female attire have women dressed so exquisitely as they do in this year of grace 1901. The figure is gracefully accentuated; all the sculptural lines are discreetly indicated without any exaggeration. No more bustle, no more outrageous sleeves, no more deformities of any sort. Many a woman would have been in despair if Nature had made her as fashion has often made her appear.

To-day it is the female form divine, beautifully draped in beautiful limp materials of soft, delicate hues, gracefully relieved by lovely lace and refined tr.i.m.m.i.n.gs, the whole with a touch of simplicity that never fails to enhance the beauty of the wearer. No, never since the cla.s.sical days of Athenian dress have women looked so beautiful as they do now.

The majority of us men are, I believe, conceited enough to think that women dress and try to look as beautiful as possible to please us. My firm conviction is that women dress to please themselves--or to kill other women with envy. To the question, Do women dress to please men? I answer most emphatically, No, they do not. Quite the contrary.

And now, may I be permitted to remark that when I reflect that Eve, after eating an apple, discovered that she was naked, I cannot help thinking that a little bite at that fruit might be of service to many ladies before they leave their dressing-rooms to go to a ball, a theatre, or a dinner party? Is it that the fashion of the day requires the train to be so long that there remains no material to make a corsage with? From the way in which women dress in the evening, you might almost mistake them for Eve.

The fact is that it is practically impossible for you to say what it is that the women wear around a dinner-table. Women dress for breakfast and undress for dinner. As for the sight offered to our gaze from the boxes at the opera, we might as well be in a Turkish bath. And the most amusing and edifying part of it is that this fashion is more flourishing in puritanical England than in any country I know, and that most of those beautiful daughters of Albion whom you see so much of are the very same ones who are presidents, vice-presidents and secretaries of the societies for the suppression of the nude in the public parks, the museums and art-galleries and other British inst.i.tutions for the suggestion of indecency.

Who says that the world is sad?

'Society ought to be exposed,' I once remarked to a beautiful member of the English aristocracy, 'for giving that bad example.' 'You are quite right,' she said; 'but that will do no good, because I believe that there is nothing that English society enjoys more than being exposed.'

'Evidently!' I thought, as I looked at the glorious shoulders exposed to my gaze.

I was quite right when I once exclaimed: 'Provided an English woman does not show her feet, she is safe and feels comfortable.'

In the way of dressing, of all the women of Europe and America, the Germans are the worst, the French the best, and the Americans the smartest. The German women are covered, the English clothed, the Americans arrayed, and the French dressed. I am not now speaking of high life--these people are the same all the world over; and whenever a writer publishes a criticism on the life and manners of any nation he ought to place the following epigraph at the top of every page he writes, so that the reader may not lose sight of it: 'All civilized nations in the world are alike in one respect: they are composed of two kinds of people--those that are ladies and gentlemen, and those that are not.' Then there could be no misunderstanding about what he writes.

I think it is acknowledged that the French women are the best dressed women in the world, and that French dressmakers are the authority on what should be worn and how it should be worn. Next I should say decidedly the American woman. In the United States the latest French fashions are worn in all their freshness and glory, but too often with exaggeration. And, when the French fashions are already outrageous in their extravagance of style and size, then the Lord help the American women! I shall never forget the remark that that most delightful of men and writers, Oliver Wendell Holmes, made to me some years ago, as we were talking on the subject of women's dress: 'By the time a French milliner has been six months in New York she will make you a bonnet to frighten a Choctaw Indian.' But then, Dr. Holmes was a refined Bostonian.

The French woman, at an afternoon or evening party, may be as beautifully and stylishly dressed as you like, there is always about her dress a certain little touch of simplicity that will make you think that somewhere in her wardrobe she keeps some frock or gown still more beautiful, stylish and expensive. Very often at breakfast-time an American woman will make you think that she has on her very best and smartest dress. I have seen some at the leading hotels of Jacksonville and St. Augustine, Florida, with diamond brooches and bracelets at breakfast. The American woman has a supreme contempt for what is not silk, satin, velvet or crepe de chine. She generally looks dressed for conquest. With her it is paint and feathers and hooray all the time! On board a steamer across the Atlantic she wears silk and fifty-dollar hats. But, of course, these ladies do not belong to the Olympian sets.

I have mentioned all this because woman's character is very much the same all over this little planet of ours. Now, of all these women, the Americans are those who devote most time and spend most money over their appearance, and as they would be least of all accused of thinking for one moment how they look for the sake of the men, I say I have proved my answer to be right, that women do not dress for men.

Indeed, if the end of the world were to witness the presence of two women only on the face of the earth, each would be discovered striving to outshine the other and look the better dressed of the two.

CHAPTER XX

THE FRENCH WIFE

Her keenness and common-sense--Her power of observation and her native adaptability--Her graceful ways--Her tact--Her artistic refinement--Monsieur et Madame--'Did I hear you knock at my door, dear?'

The wealthy cla.s.ses of society in every civilized nation in the world are so much alike in their manners, habits, and customs, that they offer very little food to the observer of national characteristics. The men follow the London fashions, the women the Paris ones. They all cultivate sport, art, and literature; they all enjoy the same luxuries of life, they all have good cooks, they all have discovered the same way of living. If you want to see how differently people live in France, in England, in Germany, in Italy, in America, wherever you like, live among the middle and lower cla.s.ses. Once, in South Africa, I spent a whole day in a Zulu kraal, living with the natives and like the natives, and I found that day spent in a far more interesting manner than if I had spent it among the hosts of the Faubourg Saint-Germain, Mayfair, or Fifth Avenue.

France is the only country that I know where, outside of the aristocracy and the wealthy cla.s.ses, you can find people who live daintily. The French labourer eats a more appetizing dinner than English and German well-to-do shopkeepers eat and than is served in the hotels of the small American towns. That French labourer would refuse to swallow, and even to look at, that wretched meal which I have seen English working-men eat at noon, when resting their backs against a wall or fence on the road--bread and pickles, or a slice of something looking very much like cat's-meat, and stale beer that had been stewing for hours in the sun in a badly-corked can.

The French wife, immensely superior to her husband in intelligence, in shrewdness, in _savoir vivre_ and _savoir faire_, thanks to her common-sense, her knowledge of financial matters, her instinct for good order and management, her artistic refinement, her keen power of observation, her native adaptability, her talent for cookery, makes a husband enjoying but a small income lead the life that a rich foreigner might envy.

She may have two dresses and one hat only to her name, but, by constant skilful changes, the little humbug will make you believe that she possesses a well-furnished wardrobe. It is not the cowl that makes the monk any more than it is the dress that makes the woman. A woman is stylish or not, according to the manner she puts her clothes on, and that is where the French woman is irresistible. To lift her dress modestly, gracefully, and daintily as she crosses a muddy street, she has not her equal in the world. She has a little bustling, fluttering way about her that will always keep your interest in her alive. She is always tidy and smart, her hair well dressed, her hands well gloved, her stockings well drawn, and her dainty little feet well shod. When she speaks to you, you can seldom guess, from the way she is dressed, from the way she behaves, from the language she uses, whether she is the wife of what society calls a gentleman or not.

She has the knack, the inborn genius, for getting twenty sou worth out of every franc she spends. She is no sn.o.b, does not play at At Homes, and saves her tea and sugar, which in France are expensive luxuries.

She does not play the piano, and saves her husband's ears. She makes her own frocks, and saves dressmakers' bills; she eats light, healthy meals of her own make, and saves cooks' wages; she goes to bed early, and saves her candles. She is rich, as most of us might be, not in what she actually possesses, but in what she knows how to do without. Thanks to that woman, a Frenchman who has 100 to spend in the year lives like an Englishman who has an income of 500.

In the most modest little flat she has her dressing-room, out of which she issues in the morning neatly trimmed, a perfect transformation. She will do without a drawing-room, but never without a dressing-room, for she understands to a supreme degree that poetry of matrimony which has not two years to live if the apartment does not possess a dressing-room.

Better than that, the French wife of that cla.s.s will play at being an aristocrat, if you please. She will insist on having Monsieur's apartment and Madame's apartment quite separate, so that they shall not be compelled to impose their society on each other if they don't feel in the mood.

And in that very humble cla.s.s of French society I know men who are trained to knock at the door of their wives' apartments in good Faubourg Saint-Germain style, when they wish for the company of Madame.

And if Monsieur should fail to knock at Madame's door when the latter would be pleased to receive his attentions and enjoy the pleasure of his company, it is just possible that she would go to her husband's _appartements_, knock at his door gently and discreetly, and whisper: 'Did I hear you knock at my door just now, dear?'

'Silly nonsense!' some people will say.

Well, my dear friends, let me tell you that happiness is made up of thousands of little foolish trifles of that sort.

CHAPTER XXI

THE ENGLISH WIFE

Her position--Family life less attractive and piquant in England than in France, but more solid--The English wife is the G.o.ddess of a beautiful home.

The Englishman is no doubt cut out to make colonies, but less to make love, for the simple reason that he does not know how to forget himself, and spends the greater part of his life standing sentry at the door of his dignity.

The Englishman loves in his own fashion, in a true and manly way, according to his peculiar organization, which enables him to bring to the choice of a wife the very same cool reflection, care and discernment that he brings to all the other actions of his life. In a word, he seldom allows himself to be 'carried away.'

This is a great superiority he has over the Frenchman, because this cool and reflective way of loving has established the English family on a most solid basis. The Englishman does not seek beauty in a wife.

After being married he wants to enjoy a perfect peace of mind, and, to do him justice, I will add that money will seldom make him take a wife who does not possess those moral and intellectual qualities that are the foundation-stone of happiness in matrimonial life. A cheerful face will attract him much more than a beautiful one. It is a cheerful and useful companion he wants, not a legal mistress or a well-dressed doll.

His honeymoon lasts a month. When he settles at home, he prepares to keep his wife in order and discipline, and to give her occupations to fill up all her time--a house to keep and a large family to bring up.

Devotion and friendship are nowhere deeper than in the English family, but poetry and piquancy shine by their absence. It is a prosy life among the ma.s.ses of the people.

Among these ma.s.ses, even the well-to-do ma.s.ses, of the people (I don't mention the upper tens, who are alike all the world over) there is no privacy between them--why, very often, not even a dressing-room.

The 'nonsense,' as I once heard an Englishman call the poetry of matrimony, is soon knocked out of them. One says, 'Oh, that's all right. It is not a man; it's only my husband'; while the other says, 'I would not do this or that before a woman for all the world; but this is the wife: it's all right.' And it is that kind of life that so often causes Englishwomen of the middle cla.s.s to appear so unattractive. The blame is to be laid at the door of their husbands. In love the Englishman is a little selfish. He forgets that the sweetest pleasures are those we give.

When the French girl marries, she gains her liberty; when the English girl marries, she often loses hers (when the American girl marries, she retains hers). In France the wife is the friend and confidante of her husband and often his mistress. In England she is the mistress of the house only. And this is not always a sinecure; for she becomes something more than a house-keeper in point of rank, but at the same time something less, if we consider that no wages are due to her and that she cannot give notice to leave.

In England the wife is the partner of her husband at home only. In France she is his partner in business. It is she who keeps his books and his cash-box, and neither was ever entrusted to better guardianship.