From a Girls Point of View | Page 8

unappreciative men,
they beg me not to be guilty of the heresy of wishing things different. If
they have married one of the noticing kind, they tell me harrowing tales
of gorgeous costumes having been cast aside because these critical men
made fun of, or were prejudiced against them, and "made remarks."
And they point with envy to Mrs. So-and-So, whose husband never
knows what she has on, but who thinks she looks lovely in everything,
so that she is at liberty to dress as she pleases. When a woman defers to
her husband's taste, she sometimes is the best-dressed woman in the
room. And sometimes another woman, dressing according to another
man's taste, is the worst-dressed. So you see you never can tell. "De
mule don't kick 'cordin' to no rule."
There is something rather pathetic to me about a man being so ignorant
of why a woman's dress is beautiful, but only the effect remaining in
his memory. He remembers how she looked on a certain day in a

certain gown. He thinks he remembers her dress. He thinks he would
know it again if he saw it. But the truth is that he is remembering the
woman herself, her face, her voice, her eyes--above all, what she said,
and how she said it. If she wore a scarlet ribbon in her dark hair, a red
rose in another woman's hair will most unaccountably bring it all back
to him, and he will not know why he suddenly sees the whole picture
rise out of the past before his eyes, nor why his throat aches with the
memory of it.
I know one of these men, whose descriptions of a woman's dress are
one of the experiences of a lifetime. He loves the word bombazine. His
mother must have worn a gown of black bombazine during his
impressionable age. And he never will be successful in describing a
modern gown until bombazines again become the rage. This same dear
man brought back to his invalid wife a description of a fashionable
noon wedding, which consisted of the single item that the bride wore a
blue alpaca bonnet. It really would be of interest from a scientific point
of view to know what suggested that combination to any intelligence,
even if it were masculine.
I have more evidence to go on, however, when I wonder why the idea
of the cost penetrates this same man's brain when shown a new gown
by any member of his family, all of whom he is weak enough to adore.
His daughter will say, "Papa, do look here just one minute! How do
you like my new gown?" And the answer never varies: "Very pretty,
indeed. I hope it's paid for." He will say that of a cotton frock made two
years ago--he never knows--of a silk _négligé_, or of a ball-gown of the
newest make. The fashion produces no impression upon him, nor the
material, nor the cut. But let his daughter put on any kind of a pale
green dress, and stand before him with the question, "Papa, how do you
like my new gown?" While he is raising his head from his book he
begins the old formula, "Very pretty. I hope--" Then he stops and says,
"I have seen that dress before. Child, you grow to look more like your
mother every day of your life." And there is a little break in his voice,
and before he goes on reading he takes off his glasses and wipes them,
and looks out of the window without seeing anything, and sits very still
for a moment. It was the sight of the pale green dress. When he came
home from the war his lovely young wife, whom he lost when she was
still young and beautiful, came to meet him, holding her baby son in

her arms for his father to see, and she had worn a pale green gown.
Why certain kinds of clothes are associated in the public mind with
certain kinds of women is to me an amusing mystery. Why are old
maids always supposed to wear black silks? And why are they always
supposed to be thin?--the old maids, I mean, not the silks. Why are
literary women always supposed to be frayed at the edges? And why, if
they keep up with the fashions and wear patent-leathers, do people say,
in an exasperatingly astonished tone, "Can that woman write books?"
Why not, pray? Does a fragment of genius corrupt the aesthetic sense?
Is writing a hardening process? Must you wear shabby boots and carry
a baggy umbrella just because you can write? Not a bit of it. Little as
some of you men may think it, literary women have souls, and a
woman with a soul must,