The true politeness and generosity which spring from good feeling and common-sense, are little regarded by the aristocracy of society, unless you have the open sesame to their doors, which is nothing less than an entire conformity to their pre-conceived ideas.
A certain air and style, only perceivable to the critics themselves, is to be maintained; a certain contour of costume rigorously to be adopted, whether agreeable to the wearer or not—an unvaried and monotonous similarity must pervade the whole world, or those venturing to differ, must suffer not only an exclusion from the company of very agreeable people (barring their prejudices), but an absolute persecution of ill-sounding epithets—such as vulgar, conceited, independent, and even the moral character is often libelled.
You must not attend the church of the Rev. ——, unless your hat is black as a stove-pipe, and with a rim of approved dimensions. The fastidious ladies of upper-tendom show symptoms of nervous agitation, as you unwittingly mount their steps in your native head-gear, which may chance to be a sombrero, or a Turkish fess—what if a TURBAN!
The only occasion on which a foreigner might be permitted to appear in his own every-day clothes, would be at some fancy ball, as if in masquerade. All this may do among themselves, but why attempt to renovate the habits of a life-time in others. Indeed, the Americans are very exacting, for when did they ever conform to any other nation’s mode of dress? while the moment you set foot on their shores, you must turn American in toto, or you are no go.
The English are proverbial for their snobbism, and stiff shirt-collars—yet in London, you may meet the Hindostanee in his white robes and turban, the Turk in his fess or red cap, and many others, as they are accustomed to be at home. Still more common is this variety in Paris, and all over Europe.
Americans, English, and French, traverse the East dressed as they like, without creating either the sensation of disgust or astonishment in the beholders. Why, then, this illiberality in the land of freedom? why force the Chinese, the moment they land, into straight-jackets, or crown the Osmanli with a sombre stove-pipe, the most uncouth machine, yclept the hat, which ever any sensible people ventured to place in so honorable a position.
Nolens volens, the Osmanli, on his arrival in the land of “Independence,” must needs become a Pasha of two tails, reversed however, as at home these emblems of rank are carried before him; but now he becomes his own standard-bearer, parading his honors and entrée to the fashionable world, in the shape of the time-honored dress coat.
To those who have never visited foreign lands, one would suppose, nothing would be more entertaining than to see an exhibition of habits and customs of other peoples.
But we must take the world as it is.
Although the manners and dress of the Orientals were, and are still, in many respects very different from those of their western neighbors, yet they have displayed a degree of civilization, if we may so speak, in their toleration of others as they chanced to meet them. English, Spanish, Italians, Magiars, Greeks, Albanians, Croats, Bulgarians, Persians, Kurds, and Arabs, walk their streets and enter their houses without dreaming of changing their costume, or disguising their own nationality under any garb whatever.