If this bit of experience of mine is any comfort to the forced sojourner in the hot city, let him hug it to heart. I have had sunsets here like the glory of "the New Jerusalem." I've wandered under these trees and been driven over these lovely roads, till my eyes were moist with happiness I could not voice. I have heard such kindly tones, and seen such loving faces, and been so hospitably entreated here, that it would take more physic than was involved in those bed-ridden days of pain and unrest to give me a grudge against lovely, mountain-girdled Stockbridge.
[MEN AND THEIR CLOTHES.]
THE female fashions of to-day are absurd enough; but if anything more absurd than a man's "stove-pipe hat" was ever invented, I would like to see it. Mark its victims, when they remove it from their heads—which they seldom do, the gods know why, unless they are getting into bed; see the red rim across their foreheads, produced by its unwieldy weight, and unnecessary inches up in the air; see them occasionally in the street, giving it a cock backwards, when nobody but apple-women are looking, to observe how quickly a gentleman, by that action, may be made into a rowdy; then see them apply their handkerchiefs to their foreheads, to cool off the heat and the pain, and then with a stoicism worthy of one of Fox's martyrs, replace it, and bear the long agony till they get home. Then what garment that ever woman wore, is more ridiculous than a man's shirt, whether buttoning before or buttoning behind, or disfigured with puerile "studs;" whether the stiff collar stands up like a picket on guard, or lays over, with a necktie to tie it suffocatingly over the jugular vein.
Then mark that abomination—a swallow-tailed coat. Heavens! how ugly the handsomest man may look in it! and woe for the plain men, when they intensify their plainness with it!
Then see the knock-kneed and the crooked-legged advertising their deformity in tight pantaloons; and short, fat, barrel men wearing little boys' cloth caps on their heads! Ah, for every female goose that Fashion makes, I will find you a male mate, even to the wearing of tight corsets!
But, my friends, on one point there's a difference. "When a fashionable lady engages a female servant, she stipulates that she shall wear a cap on her head, and calico on her back, to mark the difference between herself and that servant—without which, I suppose, it would not often be recognizable." When her husband gives a dinner, the male waiters are dressed exactly like himself—in festal white neckties, white gloves, and hideous swallow-tailed coats.
How is this? It must be that the male creature is very secure of his position, socially, mentally, morally, and physically, to permit such presumption—nay, to demand it. Can any philosopher explain to me this mystery? I was "struck 'midships" with the idea at a festal gathering not long since; and turning to my male guide, philosopher, and friend, asked what it meant. His irritating answer to this most proper and natural question was, "Fanny, don't be silly."
I reiterate my remark that men's dress is to the full as absurd in its way as women's, and I am only reconciled to the idea that a man was intended for a human being when I see an athlete of a gymnast, of glorious chest and calves, and splendid muscular arms, skimming the air as gracefully as a bird, and as poetically; then I know how civilization has ruined him! I know, that man if he jumped, and ran, and wrestled, and walked, instead of sitting stupidly in a chair in the house, or creeping into an omnibus when out of it, and smoking and going to sleep in the intervals, would not be obliged to creep into these ugly tailor's padded fashions to hide his deficiencies, but could wear what he chose, knowing that the beautiful outlines of his form would glorify any decent vestment.