If you wear your beard, wear it in moderation—extremes are always vulgar! Avoid all fantastic arrangements of the hair—turning it under in a huge roll, smooth as the cylinder of a steam-engine, and as little suggestive of good taste and comfort as would be the coil of a boa constrictor similarly located, parting it in Miss Nancy style, and twisting it into love [soap?] locks with a curling-tongs, or allowing it to straggle in long and often, seemingly, "uncombed and unkempt" masses over the coat-collar. This last outrage of good-taste is so gross a violation of what is technically called "keeping," as to excite in me extreme disgust. Ill, indeed, does it accord with the trim, compact, easily-portable costume of our day, and a miserable imitation, it is of the flowing hair that, in days of yore, fell naturally and gracefully upon the broad lace collar turned down over the velvet or satin short-cloak of the cavaliers and appropriately adorning shoulders upon which, with equal fitness, drooped a long, waving plume, from the wide-brimmed, steeple-crowned, picturesque hat that completed the costume.
While on this subject of collars, etc., let us stop to discuss for a moment the nice matter of their size and shape. Just now, like the "life" of a "poor old man," they have "dwindled to the shortest span," under the pruning shears of the operatives of the mode. Whether this is the result of a necessity growing with the lengthening beards that threaten wholly to ignore their existence, you must determine for yourselves, but I must enter my protest against the total extinction of this relieving line of white, so long, at least, as the broad wristband, now so appropriately accompanying the wide coat-sleeve, shall remain in vogue.
The mention of this last tasteful appendage naturally brings to mind the highly ornate style of sleeve-buttons now so generally adopted. Eschew, I pray you, all flash stones for these or any other personal ornament. Nothing is more unexceptionable for sleeve-buttons and the fastenings of the front of a shirt, than fine gold, fashioned in some simple form, sufficiently massive to indicate use and durability, and skillfully and handsomely wrought, if ornamented at all. Few young men can consistently wear diamonds, and they are, if not positively exceptionable, in no degree requisite to the completion of the most elaborate toilette. But those who do sport them, should confine themselves to genuine stones of unmistakable water, and never let their number induce in the minds of beholders the recollection that a travelling Jew—whether from hereditary distrust of the stability of circumstances, or from some other consideration of personal convenience, usually carries his entire fortune about his person! Better the simplest fastenings of mother-of-pearl than such staring vulgarity of display. And so of a watch and its appendages. A gentleman carries a watch for convenience, and secures it safely upon his person, wearing with it no useless ornament, paraded to the eye. It is, like his pencil and purse, good of its kind, and if he can afford it, handsome, but it is never flashy!
The fashion of sporting signet-rings is not so general, perhaps, as it was a little while since, but it still retains a place among the minutiæ of our present theme. Here, again, the same general rules of good taste apply as to other ornaments. When worn at all, everything of this sort should be most unexceptionably and unmistakably tasteful and genuine. Any deviation from good ton, in this regard, will as inevitably give a man the air of a loafer as an ill-fitting boot will, or the slightest declension from the perpendicular in his hat!
In connection with my earnest advice in regard to all flash ornaments, to whatever purpose applied, I must not omit to record my protest against staring patterns in pants, cravats, vests, etc. Carefully avoid all the large, many-colored plaids and stripes, of which (as Punch has demonstrated) it takes more than one ordinary-sized man to show the pattern; and all glaring colors as well. I have no partiality, as I believe I have intimated, for the eternal dead black which, abroad at least, belongs, by usage, primarily to the clergy; but this is a better extreme than that which has for its original type the sign-board getting-up of a horse-jockey.
A fashion has of late years obtained extensively, which has always, within my remembrance, had its admirers—that of a white suit throughout, for very warm weather. This has the great merit of comfort, and some occupations permit its adoption without inconvenience. But even the use of thin summer cravats (which should always be of some unconspicuous color) wonderfully mitigates the sufferings incident to the dog-days, and these are admissible for dress occasions, when corresponding with the general effect of the vest and nether investments.
To recur once more to the important item of body linen;—never wear a colored[1] shirt—have no such article in your wardrobe. Figures and stripes do not conceal impurity, nor should this be a desideratum with any decent man. The now almost obsolete German author, Kotzebue—whose plays were very much admired when I was young, and whom your modern students of German should read in the original—I remember, makes one of his female characters, a sensible, observing woman, say that she detected a gentleman in the disguise of a menial by observing the fineness of his linen! If your occupation be such as to require strong, rough-and-tumble garments, wear them, unhesitatingly, when you are at work, but have them good of their kind, and keep them clean. While your dress handkerchief should not look, either for size or quality, as if you had, for the nonce, perverted the proper use of bed-linen—in the woods, for pioneer travelling, rough riding, etc., a bandanna is more sensible, as is a cut-away coat, or something of that sort, with ample pockets, loose, strong, and warm, and a "soft" broad-brimmed, durable hat, or cap, as the case may be—not an old, fine black cloth dress-coat, surmounted by a narrow-rimmed "segment of a stove-pipe," with a satin cravat, though it be half-worn! In short, my dear boys, study fitness and propriety in all things. This is the legitimate result of a well regulated mind, the characteristic of a true Gentleman—which every American should aim to be—not a thing made up of dress, perfumery, and "boos," as Sir Archy McSycophant styled them; but a right-minded, self-respecting man, with Excelsior for his motto, and our broad, free, glorious land "all before him, where to choose" the theatre of a useful, honorable life. Matters like those I have dwelt on in this letter, are trifles, comparatively; but trifles, in the aggregate, make life, and, thus viewed, are not unworthy the subordinate attention of a man of sense. They are collateral, I admit, but they go to make up the perfect whole—to assist in the attainment of the true standard which every young man should keep steadily in view. And, insignificant as the effect of attention to such matters may appear to you, depend upon it, that habits of propriety and refinement in regard to such personal details, have more than a negative influence upon character in general. The man who preserves inviolable his self-respect, in regard to all personal habits and surroundings, is, ceteris paribus, far less likely to acquire a relish for low company and profligate indulgences, and to cultivate correspondent mental and moral attributes. It occurs to me that, going into detail, as I have, your attention should, in the proper connection, have been called to a little matter of dress etiquette, of which you moderns are strangely neglectful, as it appears to an old stickler for propriety like me. To have offered an ungloved hand to a lady, in the dance, would, in days when I courted the graces, have been esteemed a peccadillo, and over-punctilious as you may think me, it seems very unhandsome to me. A dress costume is no more complete without gloves than without boots, and to touch the pure glove of a lady with uncovered fingers is—impertinent!
Here, again, let me condemn all fancy display. A fresh white, or, what amounts at night to the same thing, pale yellow glove, is the only admissible thing for balls, other large evening parties, ceremonious dinners, and wedding receptions; but for making ordinary morning visits, or for the street, some dark, unnoticeable color is in quite as good taste and ton. Bright-colored gloves bring the hands into too much conspicuousness for good effect, and, to my mind, give the whole man a plebeian air. I remember once being, for a long time, unable to divine what a finely-dressed young fellow, in whom I thought I recognised the son of an old college chum, could be carrying in each hand, as he walked towards me across the Albany Park; of similar size and color, he seemed, John Gilpin like, to have
——"hung a bottle on each side
To keep the balance sure!"
When I could, in sailor phrase, "make him out," behold a pair of great fat hands, incased in tight-fitting gloves, closely resembling in hue the brightest orange-colored wrapping-paper!