What Dress Makes of Us | Page 9

with the countersign--"Why?" She investigated New York with unabashed interest, and, like many another superior provincial, she freely expressed her likes and dislikes for its traditions, show-places, and people with a commanding and amusing audacity.
Her objections were numerous. The chief one that made a deep impression upon her metropolitan friends was her disapproval of Sarah Bernhardt's acting. The middle-Westerner, instead of becoming ecstatic in her admiration, and at a loss for adjectives at the appearance of the divine Sarah, merely perked at the great French artist for some time and then demanded, querulously: "What's the matter with her? Why does she play so much with her back to the audience? I don't like it."
It was a shock to the adorers of Sarah Bernhardt to hear her so irreverently criticised. They loyally united in her defence, and sought to squelch the revolter by loftily explaining that the actress turned her back so often to the audience because she had such a noble, generous nature and desired to give the other actors a chance. "She lets them take the centre of the stage, as they say in the profession," remarked one of the party, who prided herself upon being versed in the argot of the theatre.
"But she plays with her back to the audience when she is speaking and acting, and everybody else on the stage is still but herself," petulantly insisted the Western Philistine, showing no signs of defeat.
The situation was not wholly agreeable. The worshippers of Sarah could say nothing more in justification of her turning her back on them, but, with true feminine logic, concluded, "If Sarah Bernhardt turns her back on the audience it is right, and that is all there is to say."
Just at this dramatic moment a voice from the adjoining row providentially interposed. The voice belonged to a well-known exponent of physical culture, who was never so happy as when instructing the intellectually needy. She said: "I will tell you why she plays with her back towards the audience more than any other actress upon the stage to-day." The middle-Westerner, no less impressed than her metropolitan friends, listened eagerly.
The exponent of straight backs and high chests explained didactically: "The back is wonderfully expressive; indeed it is full of vital expression. Bernhardt knows this better than any other actress because she has studied statuary with the passion of a sculptor, and because she understands that, not only the face, but the entire physical structure, is capable of expressing dramatic emotions. Strong feeling and action may be strikingly revealed by the back. Imprecations, denunciations, even prayers, seem to be charged with more force when an actress delivers them with her back turned, or half-turned to the audience.
"Bernhardt's back expresses a storm of fury when she imprecates vengeance," said the voice of authority. "Not only on the stage is the expression of the back discernible, and a knowledge of its character valuable, but in every-day life in drawing-room and street. How many women consider their backs when they dress? Look at the backs here deformed by laces and fallals," she went on contemptuously. "The majority of women never look below their chins and I believe not one in ten ever looks thoughtfully at her back," she said emphatically.
The dramatic value of a well-poised, expressive back may only concern the thousands of young women who are aspiring to be a Sarah Bernhardt or a Rachel; but a knowledge of what constitutes a properly and artistically clothed back should be of interest to all women in civilized countries.
That there is much truth in the assertion that "the majority of women never look below their chins, and not one in ten ever looks thoughtfully at her back," every observer of womankind might testify.
[Illustration: NO. 45]
The open placket-hole and sagging waist-band, sketched in No. 45, is an all too familiar sight that advertises the fact that too few women take even a cursory look at their backs. Fathers and brothers who wish to protect their womankind from adverse criticism frequently give impromptu lectures upon this very subject, as this slovenly arrangement of skirt and basque is not only seen in Grand Street, Second Avenue, and equally unfashionable quarters, but in Fifth Avenue where the modish set are _en ��vidence_. If the dainty safety-pin displayed in No. 46, goes out of vogue, the time-honored custom of sewing hooks to the waist-band of the dress, is always in fashion. Indeed, many women prefer this way of connecting separate skirt and waist to using a conspicuous pin. This is almost too trivial a detail to discourse upon, but it is as true that details make dress as it is that "trifles make life"--and neither life nor dress is a trifle.
[Illustration: NO. 46]
The offence in No. 45 is more the result of untidiness than of a