Reason does not meet these matters. “I am highly pleased,” wrote Addison, “with the coiffure now in fashion.” That is the ideal attitude of mind, a point of view above reproach. No man really is normal who does not think that “the coiffure now in fashion,” yes, and all else in fashion that expresses the invincible instinct of woman, is peculiarly and especially likable.
“Professor!” I cried, in a moment of fresh and profound conviction, “I am assured that it is a measure of sanity in a man that he shall like woman in whatever she wears. She can confound our most precious theories by doing as she pleases in the matter of dress, for the effect is always right because she has produced it. It all is her. You might as well find fault with the shade of crimson in the feathers on the bosom of a robin as to find fault with the color of her hat or gloves. Some combinations make us wince when we first see them, and in the weakness of that moment we even may entertain a doubt as to the safety of the proprieties; but we come to excuse the doubted effects, and end by putting them into the very grammar of color. I have detected a score of instances in which woman, or fashion speaking for her, has met and turned the judgment of art. I have a theory that certain painter prejudices have simply been demolished by the instinct of woman.”
The Professor was reading an exciting book on “The Evolution of the Vertebrata,” and I knew it, but she was quite patient, and said quietly, “Those are not the only prejudices that have been demolished by the instinct of woman.”
“True,” I admitted, curious, yet not disposed to challenge enumeration. “Do you know,” I went on, “that your comment brings up an interesting question as to the effect upon woman herself of a pampered instinct. Will not the reckless gratification of instinct, charming as its effects may be, tend in time to differentiate her unfavorably? Though you meet vertebrata with your reason, when you turn your instincts loose upon millinery are you not vitiating—”
“Will you stop!” expostulated the Professor, “before both instinct and reason co-operate in boxing your ears? Prattle about a woman’s instinct is a man’s way of dodging admission of woman’s subtler sense. If I actually had the time I should like to impress upon you the fact that dress is a department of the fine arts; that it has a logic and a language, principles, rules, functions, and a future. But that is another matter. Man is hampered by absurd prejudices as to clothes, especially as to the clothes of women. Our Concord philosopher remarked that the consciousness of being well dressed imparts a peace and confidence which even religion scarcely can bestow. Beneath the fact of this dependence lie emotions and impulses to which women yield frankly, but to which men turn a hypocritical squint. The candor of woman toward her clothes instincts does her good. A free, natural love of clothes as clothes is a sign of health in a woman.”
“Professor, if I did not know how fearfully and wonderfully it was made, and how unpromising for the purpose, I should say that you were talking through your hat.”
The Professor rewarded me with her choicest twinkle. “Well,” she said, “I sha’n’t be able to laugh in my sleeve much longer; fashion is making it tighter every day!”
“Can you not see,” I went on, “that the tightness or looseness of a sleeve, for example, must have some direct effect upon the mental attitude of a woman? Are not these constant changes destructive of intellectual repose and progress? If dress is a language, how can you escape a resulting confusion in this instability?”
“My dear sir, that constant change of which you speak is not an instability, but a consistent and symmetrical ebb and flow.”