Shorter Prose Pieces | Page 3

least it has the merit of
indicating the proper position of the waist. I feel quite sure that all
English women of culture and position will set their faces against such
stupid and dangerous practices as are related by Miss Leffler-Arnim.
Fashion's motto is: Il faut souffrir pour etre belle; but the motto of art
and of common-sense is: Il faut etre bete pour souffrir.
Talking of Fashion, a critic in the Pall Mall Gazelle expresses his
surprise that I should have allowed an illustration of a hat, covered with
"the bodies of dead birds," to appear in the first number of the Woman's
World; and as I have received many letters on the subject, it is only
right that I should state my exact position in the matter. Fashion is such
an essential part of the mundus muliebris of our day, that it seems to
me absolutely necessary that its growth, development, and phases

should be duly chronicled; and the historical and practical value of such
a record depends entirely upon its perfect fidelity to fact. Besides, it is
quite easy for the children of light to adapt almost any fashionable form
of dress to the requirements of utility and the demands of good taste.
The Sarah Bernhardt tea-gown, for instance, figured in the present issue,
has many good points about it, and the gigantic dress-improver does
not appear to me to be really essential to the mode; and though the
Postillion costume of the fancy dress ball is absolutely detestable in its
silliness and vulgarity, the so-called Late Georgian costume in the same
plate is rather pleasing. I must, however, protest against the idea that to
chronicle the development of Fashion implies any approval of the
particular forms that Fashion may adopt.

WOMAN'S DRESS

The "Girl Graduate" must of course have precedence, not merely for
her sex but for her sanity: her letter is extremely sensible. She makes
two points: that high heels are a necessity for any lady who wishes to
keep her dress clean from the Stygian mud of our streets, and that
without a tight corset the ordinary number of petticoats and etceteras'
cannot be properly or conveniently held up. Now, it is quite true that as
long as the lower garments are suspended from the hips a corset is an
absolute necessity; the mistake lies in not suspending all apparel from
the shoulders. In the latter case a corset becomes useless, the body is
left free and unconfined for respiration and motion, there is more health,
and consequently more beauty. Indeed all the most ungainly and
uncomfortable articles of dress that fashion has ever in her folly
prescribed, not the tight corset merely, but the farthingale, the
vertugadin, the hoop, the crinoline, and that modern monstrosity the
so-called "dress improver" also, all of them have owed their origin to
the same error, the error of not seeing that it is from the shoulders, and
from the shoulders only, that all garments should be hung.
And as regards high heels, I quite admit that some additional height to
the shoe or boot is necessary if long gowns are to be worn in the street;

but what I object to is that the height should be given to the heel only,
and not to the sole of the foot also. The modern high-heeled boot is, in
fact, merely the clog of the time of Henry VI., with the front prop left
out, and its inevitable effect is to throw the body forward, to shorten the
steps, and consequently to produce that want of grace which always
follows want of freedom.
Why should clogs be despised? Much art has been expended on clogs.
They have been made of lovely woods, and delicately inlaid with ivory,
and with mother-of-pearl. A clog might be a dream of beauty, and, if
not too high or too heavy, most comfortable also. But if there be any
who do not like clogs, let them try some adaptation of the trouser of the
Turkish lady, which is loose round the limb and tight at the ankle.
The "Girl Graduate," with a pathos to which I am not insensible,
entreats me not to apotheosize "that awful, befringed, beflounced, and
bekilted divided skirt." Well, I will acknowledge that the fringes, the
flounces, and the kilting do certainly defeat the whole object of the
dress, which is that of ease and liberty; but I regard these things as mere
wicked superfluities, tragic proofs that the divided skirt is ashamed of
its own division. The principle of the dress is good, and, though it is not
by any means perfection, it is a step towards it.
Here I leave the "Girl Graduate," with much regret, for Mr. Wentworth
Huyshe. Mr. Huyshe makes the old criticism that Greek