Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, no. 24 October 1859 | Page 8

seen of men, is
not the object of a watchful solicitude at least next to that which she
feels for her reputation. Among the sharpest of Douglas Jerrold's
unmalicious witticisms was his saying, that Eve ate the apple that she
might dress.
_Mrs. Grey_. Eve's daughters--two of them, at least--are inexpressibly
obliged to you for your defence of the sex against the valorous Tomes.
Another time, pray, leave us to our fate. But, Laura, do look here! See
these hideous peaked and horned head-dresses of the fifteenth century.
That one looks like an Old-Dominion coffee-pot with wings. How
frightful! how uncomfortable! how inconvenient! How could the
women wear such things?
Miss Larches. Perfectly ridiculous! How could they get into their
carriages with those steeples on their heads? and how they must have
been in the way at the opera!
Grey. Miss Larches forgets. These head-dresses, monstrous as they are,
are not exposed to the objection of being inconsistent with the habits of
life of those who wore them, as so many of the fashions of later periods

and of the present day are. There were no such vehicles as she is
thinking of until more than a century after these stupendous
head-dresses were worn, until which time ladies very rarely used even a
covered wagon as a means of locomotion; and these steeple-crowned
ladies, and many generations after them, had passed away before the
performance of the first opera.
Miss Larches. No carriages? Why, how did they go to parties? No
opera? What did they do on winter evenings when there were no
parties?
Grey. They went to parties in the day-time on horseback; and on the
days when there were no parties, of which there were a great many then,
they gave themselves up to a very delightful mode of passing the time,
when it is intelligently practised, known as staying at home.
_Mr. Key_. What a bore!
Grey. But don't confine your criticism of head-dresses to the fifteenth
century. Look through the costumes of the three succeeding centuries,
and see how often invention was taxed for artificial decorations of the
head, equally elaborate and hideous. Anything but to have a head look
like a head! anything but to have hair look like hair! See this lady of
1750, her hair drawn violently back from her forehead and piled up on
a cushion nine inches high. She is plainly one of those lovely,
warm-toned blondes whose hair is of that priceless red that makes all
other tints look poor and sad; and so she defiles its exquisite texture
with grease, and blanches out its wealth of color with flour. She might
have gathered its gleaming waves into a ravishing knot behind her head;
but no, she has four stiff, enormous curls, noisome with a mingled
smell of hot iron, musk, and ambergris, hanging like rolls of parchment
from the top of her cushion to below her ear. O' top of this elevation is
mounted a wreath of gaudy artificial flowers, in its turn surmounted by
four vast plumes, two yellow, one pink, one blue, from the midst of
which shoot up two long feathers, one green and one red, while behind
hangs down a greasy, floury mass gathered at the end into a club-like
handle, which has some fitness for its place, in suggesting that it should
be used to jerk the heap of hair, grease, and feathers from the head of

the unfortunate who sustains it. Just think of it! that sweet creature
must have given up at least two hours of every day to this
disfigurement of her pretty head.
Tomes. And I've no doubt she made a sensation in the ball-room or at
court, in spite of all your ridicule, and so attained her purpose.
Grey. Certainly she did; for she was so beautiful in person and alluring
in manner, that even that head-dress, and the accompanying costume
with which she was deformed, could not eclipse her charms for those
who had become at all accustomed to the absurd disguise which she
assumed. But it was the woman that was beautiful, not the costume;
and the woman was so beautiful, in spite of the costume, that she was
able to light up even its forbidding features with the reflection of her
own loveliness. There have been countless similar cases since;--there
are some now.
_Mrs. Grey_. Miss Larches, doubtless, appreciates the approving
glance of so severe a censor.
Grey. And this head-dress was open to the objection which Miss
Larches brought against that which preceded it three centuries. These
ladies were in each other's way at the opera; and while riding there in
their coaches, they were obliged to sit with their heads out of the
windows.
_Mrs. Grey_. Their carriages must have been of great service when it