"I wouldn't mind St. Simeon," said my irate friend (she had worked herself up to a pitch of indignation); "probably he was old and venerable, and to be tolerated; but it hurts me to be preached to by a young thing like that minister to-day, as if I were a Babylonish woman! We don't 'walk haughtily with stretched-forth necks, walking and mincing as we go, making a tinkling with our feet.' And as to our 'changeable suits of apparel,' and the 'crimping pins,' do we live for these things? Our maids make a living by taking care of them while we are at church hoping to hear of something better than crimping pins."
The lady who expressed these heretical sentiments was, as I have remarked, my most intimate friend; and although not older than herself, I considered it my duty to reason with her. "But you see, my dear Agnes," I said, "we are obliged to be on the side of our young preacher, whether we like it or not. He is the white-plumed champion riding forth from the courts of purity and beauty of behavior. We wouldn't like to be the sable knight who emerges from the opposite direction."
"I would!" declared my young rebel. "Infantile clergymen should keep to the sins of their own sex. Nobody criticises men's dress. They are exempt. They may surround their countenances with Henry VIII ruffs, which make them look like the head of John the Baptist on a charger,—nobody calls them ridiculous. They wear the briefest surf costumes—nobody says they are indecent."
"But, my dear—"
"But, my dear, I know all about the matter of evening dress. I've studied it up. It is a time-honored fashion (I can show you all about it in my new encyclopædia). You remember I let you air your learning and quote old Tertullian. Did I look bored?"
"Not at all. You may tell me now. You can finish before we get home."
"Well, then, the décolleté bodice is not a new expression of total depravity. It is an old fashion, appearing in 1280, with stomacher of jewels. It reached England from Bohemia, but was then the fashion in Italy, Poland, and Spain. Those times were not conspicuous for sentiment, but were quite as moral as the times of the Greek chiton, or the Roman tunic, or the Norman robe, or the Saxon gown."
"But," I interrupted, "it was out of fashion in the high-necked days of Queen Elizabeth."
"Oh, she had her own reasons for disliking to see a suggestive bare throat! Queen Bess was not conspicuous for purity. Don't interrupt me—I'll prove everything by the book—lots of good women have worn low dresses. Madame Recamier was a pretty good woman, and so were our grandmothers, and so were the ladies of the Golden Age in Virginia who reared the boys that won our independence."
"All of which proves nothing," I declared; but we had reached our door on New York Avenue, and went in for our Sunday dinner. My friend did not inflict the encyclopædia. She had already quoted it. What was the use? We may be sure of one thing: no fashion has ever yet been discarded because it was abused. No Damascus blade has ever been keen enough to lop off an offending fashion.