Many of the features I have described are found also in most modern cities in different degrees, and are still more evident in the United States, where there is nothing ancient to stem the tide of modern—shall we say progress? It is only fair to note, however, that there is a movement in New York, in which leading architects and artists are joining with municipal reformers, for the preservation of beauty in the better ordering of street improvements, the laying out of public places, and the general recognition of the social importance of harmony and pleasant effect in cities, which has lately found expression in schemes of town-planning and garden cities and suburbs in this country.
Turning from the aspects of their houses to the humans who inhabit them—take modern dress in our search for the beautiful! Well, national if not distinctive costume—except of the working and sporting sort, court dress, collegiate and municipal robes, and uniforms—has practically disappeared, and, apart from working dress in working hours, one type of ceremonial, or full dress is common to the people at large, and that of the plainest kind—with whatever differences and niceties of cut and taste in detail—I mean the type for men, of course.
Among the undisputed rights of women the liberty to dress as she pleases, even under recognized types for set occasions, and with constant variety and change of style, is not a little important, and it is a liberty that has very striking effects upon the aspects of modern life we are considering. It is true, this liberty may be checked by the decrees of eminent modistes, and limited by the opinion of Mrs. Grundy, or the frank criticism of the boy in the street; and it is even more than probable that the exigencies of trade have something to do with it also.
It is, however, too important an element in the ensemble of life to be ignored or undervalued in any way, as women's dress affords one of the few opportunities of indulging in the joy of colour that is left to civilization.
Men suffer the tyranny of the tall silk hat as the outward and visible sign of respectability—surely a far more obvious one nowadays than Carlyle's "gig." "Gigmanity" has become top-hat-manity. The "stove-pipe" is the crown of the modern king—financier—the business man—He "who must be obeyed." I understand it is still as much as a city clerk's place is worth for him to appear in any other head-gear. Ladies, too, encourage it, with the black-frock coat and the rest of the funereally festive attire of modern correct mankind. I suppose the garb is considered to act as an effective foil to the feast of colour indulged in by the ladies, and that it may act as a sort of black framing to fair pictures—black commas, semi-colons, or full-stops, agreeably punctuating passages of delicate colour!
The worst of it is that the beauty of woman's dress, when it happens to follow or revive a fashion with great possibilities of beauty, as at present, seems to be a matter almost of accident, and entirely at the mercy of the mode (or the trade?)—here to-day and gone to-morrow; and, alas, lovely woman, our only hope for variety in colour and form in modern life, in her determination to descend into the industrial and professional arena and compete commercially with men, not unfrequently shows a tendency to take a leaf out of her rival's tailor's pattern-book, and to adopt or adapt more or less of the features of modern man's prosaic, though possibly convenient and durable, but certainly summary and unromantic attire.
Well, I think, on the whole, the pictures which modern life in London or any great capital discloses may be striking in their contrasts, vivid in their suggestions, dramatic or tragic in their aspects—anything or everything, in fact, except beautiful; except, of course, in so far as accidental effects of light and atmosphere are beautiful, mainly, perhaps, because they disguise or transfigure actually unlovely form and substance.
The essential qualities of beauty being harmony, proportion, balance, simplicity, charm of form and colour, can we expect to find much of it in conditions which make life a mere scramble for existence for the greater part of mankind? Bellamy, in his "Looking Backward," gives a striking and succinct image of modern social and economic conditions in his illustration or allegory of the coach and horses. The coach is Capitalism. It carries a minority, but even these struggle for a seat, and to maintain their position, frequently falling off, when they either go under altogether, or must help to pull the coach with the majority toiling in the traces of commercial competition.
However these conditions may, among individuals, be softened by human kindness, or some of their aspects modified by artistic effort, they do not change the cruelty or injustice of the system, or its brutal and ugly aspects in the main.
But if modern civilization is only tolerable in proportion to the number and facility of the means of escape from it, perhaps we may find at least the beauty of the country and of wild nature unimpaired?