XIION THE ETHICS OF CLOTHES
This is not a chapter on “What to wear and how to wear it.” It is not a question altogether of becoming and fashionable attire. It is, rather, of our clothes and their relation to the rest of the world that I would speak. We talk a great deal about art; is it not just as desirable in dress as anywhere? God meant women to be attractive just as He meant flowers to be lovely and birds to sing. Why, then, should women of earnest purpose think it advances their work to make frumps of themselves?
Is there a shy, poorly dressed woman coming to your church, always taking a back seat and slipping off like a frightened lamb when the service is over? Hunt her out and say something pleasant to her. And remember, especially if you can afford gorgeous raiment yourself, thatthat very woman may have something for you. Try it and see. I have often been asked if I do not consider it wrong for a rich woman to wear better clothes to her club than the average member can afford. I say No. As long as women are women half the pleasure of going out anywhere, even to church, lies in the opportunity it gives for seeing what other women wear. And it does not follow, because we cannot wear rich clothing ourselves, that we are unable to bear the sight of it displayed on the person of another woman without that secret stirring of pride and all uncharitableness of which Saint Paul speaks so eloquently. On the contrary, most of us delight in beautiful things, and it is a pleasure to see fine clothes, even if we cannot behold them under our own roof-tree and in our own wardrobes. Another thing. No woman likes to feel that she is being dressed down to, or that some other woman is pitying her because her raiment is not costly. If the choice lies between feeling that some other woman can wear better things than I do, or the consciousness that this other woman feels that she can and is trying to dress down to the limits of my purse, give me the former; I will try to bear the sight of her fineclothes with patience and to believe that my soul is above the glitter of outside adornment. For a woman’s a woman for a’ that.
The time is coming—we see it already around the corner—when clothes do not make the woman. The plain little woman whose garb is just about as noticeable as the feathers of a little brown sparrow is quite as apt to be the leading spirit in her club or town or State, as the one with reception gowns from Felix and tailor suits from Redfern. And yet why should anybody speak or think disparagingly of a woman because she follows Shakespeare’s advice, “Costly thy raiment as thy purse can buy”? May there not be just as much uncharitableness among women in this direction as in the other? Possibly a woman is abundantly able to wear a tailor gown that costs a hundred dollars or more, and her husband is more than particular about her dress. Some husbands are. Is it her duty to wear a cheaper gown because some of her sisters must?
Here is a nice question in club ethics. One’s husband may count his money by the hundred thousands or even the millions; both he and the children may be strenuous about the mother’sclothes. What is her duty? Shall she go against the wishes of her own family, not to mention her personal taste in the matter, and studiously avoid wearing good gowns when she goes to the club—simply because there are women there whose husbands can scarcely afford the “ready-made tailor” or the home-seamstress-made silk which they are wearing?
And as some woman has already said, should it be inconsistent with the Federation idea for the woman who can afford it, and who has always dressed well, to appear elegantly gowned at the conventions? Inconsistency would lie in the discarding of her usual apparel for the time being, and the substitution of plainer garments, and by so doing she would prove conclusively that she was not really democratic.
Should Robert of Lincoln’s Quaker wife—pretty and sensible and plain and brown—wish to change the brilliant plumage of the oriole when she flits into her range of vision? I think not; it would not be natural or fair or kind. And is it necessary in order to be effective in social service, in order to be consistent, in order to reach fulness of power, that we be so serious about it all? I like the expression which one ofour ablest women used when she spoke of working “in gay self-forgetfulness.” My mother used to tell me that the best-dressed women were those who, having donned their pretty clothes and satisfied themselves that they were all right, thought no more about them, but went out into company with other women with no more consciousness of clothes than the flowers and birds seem to have of their colors and music. It is true that we should work hard for what is most dear to us, but not so seriously that we cannot see God’s beautiful sunshine and brilliant coloring of sky and field.
And so I contend, from a purely æsthetic standpoint, for the continuation of the wearing of pretty gowns and rare jewels by the possessors of them. Sidney Lanier, in “My Springs,” one of the poems addressed to his wife, after speaking of the “loves” she held for everything in the great world, says:
“And loves for all that God and manIn art and nature make or plan,And lady-loves for spidery laceAnd broideries and supple grace.“And diamonds and the whole sweet roundOf littles that large life compound,And love for God and God’s bare truth,And loves for Magdalen and Ruth.”
“And loves for all that God and manIn art and nature make or plan,And lady-loves for spidery laceAnd broideries and supple grace.“And diamonds and the whole sweet roundOf littles that large life compound,And love for God and God’s bare truth,And loves for Magdalen and Ruth.”
“And loves for all that God and manIn art and nature make or plan,And lady-loves for spidery laceAnd broideries and supple grace.
“And loves for all that God and man
In art and nature make or plan,
And lady-loves for spidery lace
And broideries and supple grace.
“And diamonds and the whole sweet roundOf littles that large life compound,And love for God and God’s bare truth,And loves for Magdalen and Ruth.”
“And diamonds and the whole sweet round
Of littles that large life compound,
And love for God and God’s bare truth,
And loves for Magdalen and Ruth.”
“We are all living in a kindergarten for the blind,” said a prominent divine at Mr. Anagnos’ beautiful institution in Boston. “Having eyes, perhaps we do not see that best and highest life of the divine which awaits us just beyond our ken.”
The French gown and gorgeous hat which we envy, or at best admire, may cover a nature full of courage and healing for our secret woes, if we were not so blind we could not see; and in our turn we might supply some stimulus which she lacks. And the woman in the ill-fitting, home-made gown in the corner might, possibly, bring positive blessing to both of us and others. We each have something for the other. Have we given our share?
“Why don’t you bring some of your fine gowns up here with you?” asked the country relatives of a rich woman. “We like to see them even if our meeting-house and rag-carpeted sitting-rooms don’t seem just the place for them.”A great many women feel the same way. They like to see pretty clothes, even if they cannot wear them. So let us not worry over this matter of dress. It will right itself. If the woman who is apt to overdress—to whom dress is the main object in life—comes into contact with higher-minded women, she will soon absorb a higher ideal and come to feel that there are greater purposes than are covered by the Paris fashion plates, and worthier subjects of contemplation and discussion than whether to ruffle or not to ruffle the skirt. And do these not need such help just as much as those that dwell in low places and perhaps long ago learned to combine high thinking with plain living?
Oh, sisters, we none of us realize one another’s needs. How do we know that she whom we have been envying as possessing everything heart could wish, is not the most miserable of women? How do we know that the quiet, insignificant woman in sparrow-like raiment has not exactly the help which we are silently craving? Let us come out of our shells and see. Let us make of life something more than a series of good times, when we have gone forth arrayed in gorgeous attire and in search of amusement only.Have we been of those who shirk duty by leaving it to those who like to work, while we have acted as sponges to soak up the waters of gladness set running by the untiring efforts of others?
Or have we, through unselfish and self-forgetting labor for the advancement of all, grown up to a broader outlook on life, a more tolerant eye for the shortcomings of others and a wider charity for humanity everywhere? Only by losing ourselves do we find our best selves. There are so many things we can do to brighten the life-path for others, and almost without effort on our part. A kind word, a helpful suggestion, a pleasant smile in answer to a cross look; these cost nothing, and if we cultivate the habit we shall carry them unconsciously wherever we go; and they often mean so much.
There is the sister who comes from a home where the most rigid economy must be practiced, or where the children, dear as they are, wear on overworked nerves and brain; where death has brought havoc and desolation; where the husband is surly and penurious; where scandal or disgrace has been, or where sorrows worse than death have brought darkness and continualheartache. Do you think it does not matter to such whether you give them cordial greeting, whether your presence is like the blessed sunlight, whether your life of un-self-conscious faith and hope beams across their way, even for a half hour? How seldom it occurs to any of us to ask ourselves what is our real, unconscious influence among our sisters.
Somebody has said that to be warped unconsciously by the magnetic influence of all around is the destiny of even the greatest souls. If this is true, how much more is it likely that we common souls shall be swayed by outside spiritual forces. Let us see to it that we are not like Hosea Bigelow’s character who
“Might be a marvel of easy delightfulnessIf he would not sometimes leave the r out of sprightfulness.”
“Might be a marvel of easy delightfulnessIf he would not sometimes leave the r out of sprightfulness.”
“Might be a marvel of easy delightfulnessIf he would not sometimes leave the r out of sprightfulness.”
“Might be a marvel of easy delightfulness
If he would not sometimes leave the r out of sprightfulness.”
Let us, also, recall Dorothea’s motto in “Middlemarch”:
“I have a belief of my own, and it comforts me, that by desiring what is perfectly good, even when we do not know what it is, and cannot do what we would, we are a part of the divinepower against evil, widening the skirts of light and making the struggle with darkness narrower.”
A good motto for us all, isn’t it?