“‘I go into the Park every day with mamma, but it bores me dreadfully. I see nothing but the same people, and I know all the trees and rails by heart. I ride sometimes; I like it better than the carriage. But papa don’t ride very often; and if he don’t I can’t, except with the Pevenseys and their brothers. John Pevensey is very stupid, and talks to me about farming. I get very tired; but I am obliged to go, because the Pevenseys know so many receivable people. But they bore me dreadfully; in fact, I don’t know who or what does not. I long for the season to be over; and when I go into the country, I long for it to begin again. I wish I could do as I pleased, like Marshall—that’s my maid—when she has a holiday. She is going to marry the man at the hairdresser’s; and last Sunday they went down all by themselves to Gravesend. I see mamma’s face if Ashton Howard was to propose to take me to Gravesend next Sunday, and without Lady Banner! I wish sometimes I was Marshall. Now and then I would give a good deal for a good cry. I can’t tell you why—I don’t know; only that everything is a trouble, and bores me dreadfully.’”
In reply to further inquiries from Mr. Smith, the young lady tells him what she pays for her satin shoes, which are worn out after two parties. Does she have her gloves cleaned?
“‘Certainly; but not for evening parties—the men’s coats blacken them in an instant. They do very well for the opera and evening concerts—nothing else. The Pevenseys wear cleaned gloves. Everybody knows it; and Ashton Howard always asks out loud if a camphine-lamp has gone out when they come into the room. You can get a nice bouquet for five or six shillings. Old Mr. Rigby, in the Regent’s Park, told me I might cut any flowers from his conservatory. But I don’t care for that—I would sooner buy them; he bores me dreadfully.’”
It cannot be denied that ugliness has reached its climax in men’s dress of the present day. It would be extremely difficult to find a garment more hideous than a dress-coat; and it is impossible for any head-covering to exceed the stove-pipe hat in ugliness, to say nothing of inconvenience and detestable uncomfortableness.
These sentiments were fully shared by one of the Month’s correspondents, a gentleman named Simmons, who “emerged from his residence at Islington” on the day of the opening of the Great Exhibition with the intention of showing to the multitudes who were expected to attend that ceremony the kind of hat that should depose, at once and for ever, the detestable chimney-pot.
“It was, in fact,” says the bold reformer, “merely a wide-brimmed, flat-crowned wideawake, to which I thought a feather—in these days of foreign immigration—would not be an out-of-the-way addition. I had contemplated my own features beneath it in as much variety of light and shadow as I could obtain from my shaving-glass for half an hour preceding my departure, and had arrived at such a satisfactory conclusion as to its effect, that I regarded myself as a sort of modern William Tell, about to release my country, by a bold example, from an oppressive and degrading subjection to a detested hat.”
A love of change is said to be inherent in human nature; but attacks upon custom—indeed, innovations of all kinds—are usually futile unless very special conditions attend the attempts. If the famous hat invented by a Royal Prince was received with overwhelming ridicule, as my older readers will remember that it was; a less melancholy fate could scarcely be expected for the wideawake and feather of the little gentleman from Islington.
“My appearance in the street certainly created a sensation,” says Mr. Simmons; “but it was one exceedingly mortifying to my feelings. Omnibus drivers winked at each other, and pointed at me with their whips. Occasionally a stray boy would indulge in personal observations, or a grown-up ragamuffin would sputter out an oath, and burst into a horse laugh, which to my mind appeared totally unwarranted by the circumstances of the case.”
The managers of the Month very wisely placed this etching in the front of their first number. In all respects Leech is here seen at his best. The figure of the poor little victim of reform, the street-boys and their surroundings, are all unsurpassable; while to an artist the composition of the figures and the arrangement of light and shadow are excellent.