Part 4

This gentleman has slowly convinced himself that the proper fulfilment of his destiny depends absolutely upon about ten thousand different things. All things of course have their importance, but this gentleman attaches a supreme and quite fatal importance to all the ten thousand things. He begins to be fussy on waking up, and he stops being fussy when he goes to sleep. He may not smoke a cigarette in his bath, but he will probably keep a thermometer in his bath because he is convinced that there is a ‘right’ temperature for the bath-water, and that any other temperature would impair his efficiency. He may detest smoking, in which case he will probably have rigid ideas about the precise sort of woven stuff he must wear next to his skin. He may be almost any kind of character, and yet be fussy. He may be so tidy that he cannot exist in a room, either in his own house or in anybody else’s, until he has been round the walls and made all the pictures exactly horizontal. He may be so untidy that if his wife privily tidies his desk he is put off work for the rest of the day. He may be so fond of open air that he can only sleep with his head out of a window, or so afraid of open air that a draught deranges all his activities for a fortnight. He may be so regular that he kisses his wife by the clock, or so irregular that he is never conscious of appetite until a meal has been going cold for half an hour. And so on endlessly.

But whatever he does and thinks he does and thinks under the conviction that if he did and thought otherwise the consequences would be disastrous to himself if not to others. Whereas the truth is that to change all his habits from morn to eve would result in great benefit to him. He spends his days attaching vast quantities of importance to a vast number of things. Whereas the truth is, that scarcely any of the said things are important in more than the slightest degree. He is the victim of not one delusion but of hundreds of delusions, and especially the grand delusion that the world is ready to come to an end on the most trifling provocation.

But there is no hope of him being sent to join the poached egg in the lunatic asylum. His friends are content to say of him:

‘He’s rather a particular man.’

True, his enemies scorn and objurgate him, and proclaim him pernicious to society. You naturally are his enemy, and you scorn him. But you should beware how you scorn him, because you may unconsciously be on the way to becoming a complete fusser yourself. All of us--or at any rate ninety-nine out of every hundred of us--have within us the insidious microbe of fussiness.

III

The way to becoming a complete fusser is obscure at the start of it. To determine the predisposing causes to fussiness would necessitate volumes of research into the secrets of individuality and the origins of character--and would assuredly lead to no practical result, because these creative mysteries lie beyond our influence--at any rate for the present. A man is born with or without the instinct to fuss--that must suffice for us.

Nevertheless the real instinct to fuss ought not to be confused with perfectly normal impulses which may superficially resemble it. Thus it is often assumed that domestic servants as a class are fussy, especially about their food. I can see no reason why domestic servants as a class should be fussy, and I do not believe they are. What is mistaken for fussiness in them is merely the universal human prejudice against anything to which one is not accustomed. Labouring people are, unfortunately for themselves, used to a narrow diet. A hundred comestibles which to their alleged superiors may seem quite commonplace are fearsomely strange to labouring people. A rural girl goes to serve in a large house; she is offered excellent fish, and she refuses it; she ‘can’t fancy it.’ Whereupon the mistress exclaims upon the astounding fussiness of the poor! The explanation of the affair is simply that the rural girl has never had opportunity to regard fish as an article of diet.

Similar phenomena may be observed in children of even the superior unfussy classes. And, for another instance, gardeners will grow the most superb asparagus who would not dream of eating it, and could scarcely bring themselves to eat it. For them asparagus is not a luxury, but something unnatural in the mouth, like snails or the hind-legs of frogs. Snails and the hind-legs of frogs are luxuries in various parts of the world; the Anglo-Saxon maid-scorning mistress would certainly recoil from them if they were put on her plate, and in so doing she would not lay herself open to a charge of fussiness. Yet in recoiling from them she would be behaving exactly like the rural maid whom she scorns.

Nor must fussiness be confused with certain profound and incurable antipathies, such as the strong repulsion of some individuals for cats, apples, horses, etc.

The real instinct to fuss can always be distinguished from the other thing by this--the real instinct to fuss is progressive. If it is not checked with extreme firmness it goes steadily on its way. And though the start of the way to becoming a complete fusser may be obscure, the later portions of the journey are not so obscure. Pride, if not conceit, presides over them, and is always pushing forward the traveller from one abnormality to the next. Thus a man discloses a dislike to black clothes. His aunt dies at a great distance and leaves him some money. His wife asks him: ‘Shall you wear black?’ He answers with somewhat pained dignity: ‘Darling, you know I never wear black.’ He is now known to himself and to his wife as the man who will not wear black. Then his father dies, in the same town where the son lives; the objector to black will have to attend the funeral. After a little conversation with him the wife says to friends: ‘You know Edward objects to black. He does really. He _never_ wears it, and I’m afraid he won’t wear it even for his father’s funeral.’

Henceforth Edward is known not merely to himself and his wife but to the whole town as the man who won’t wear black. It is a distinction. He is proud of it. His wife is rather impressed by the sturdiness of his resolution. He has suffered a little for his objection to black. His reputation is made. An anti-black clause inserts itself into his religion. Pride develops into conceit. Success and renown encourage the instinct to fuss, and soon he has grown fussy about something else. And thus does the fellow reach his goal of being a complete fusser.

IV

There is no cure for the complete fusser. You might think that some tremendous disaster--such as marrying a shrew who hated fussing, or being cast on a desert island, or being imprisoned--would cure him. But it would not. It would only cause a change in the symptoms; for every human environment whatsoever gives occasion for fussiness to the complete fusser. Even in the army, even in the lowest and most order-ridden grades of the army, the complete fusser contrives to flourish. And he is incurable because he is unconscious of being fussy. What the world regards as fussiness he regards as wisdom essential to a reasonable existence. He sincerely looks down upon the rest of mankind. Spiritual pride puts him into the category of the hopeless case--along with the alcoholic drunkard, the genuine kleptomaniac, and other specimens whom he would chillingly despise.

Apparently the sole use of the complete fusser is to serve as a terrible warning to those who are on the way to becoming complete fussers themselves--a terrible warning to pull up.

That fussiness in its earlier stages can be cured is certain. But the cure is very drastic in nature. There are lucid moments in the life of the as yet incomplete fusser when he suspects his malady, when he guiltily says to himself: ‘I know I am peculiar, but--’ Such a moment must be seized, and immediate action taken. (The ‘but’ must be choked. The ‘but’ may be full of wisdom, but it must be choked; the ‘but’ is fatal.) If the fusser is anti-black let him proceed to the shopping quarter at once. Let him not order a suit-to-measure of black. Let him buy a ready-made suit. Let him put it on in the store or shop, and let him have the other suit sent home. Let him then walk about the town in black.... He is saved! No less thorough procedure will save him.

And similarly for all other varieties of fussiness.

THE MEANING OF FROCKS

THE MEANING OF FROCKS

I

BEING a man, I know that on the subject of women’s fashions men still talk a vast amount of nonsense, partly sincere and partly insincere--especially when there are no women present. The fact is that the whole subject is deeply misunderstood, and the great majority of people, both men and women, live and dress and die without getting anywhere near the truth of it.

Men try to explain the feminine cult of clothes by asserting that women as a sex are vain. It is a profound truth that women as a sex are vain. It is also a profound truth that men as a sex are vain. Have you ever been with a man into a hosier’s shop? If you are a woman you certainly have not, because, though a woman is often glad to be accompanied by a man when she is choosing her adornments, a man will not allow a woman to watch him at the same work. Fashionable dressmakers are delighted to welcome the accompanying man. But at the sight of a woman in his establishment the fashionable hosier would begin to fear for the safety of the commonwealth. Even if you are a man you probably have not been with another man into a hosier’s shop. Men prefer to do these deeds quite alone; they shun even their own sex; the shopman does not count. Why this secrecy? The answer is clear. Men are ashamed of themselves on such occasions because on such occasions their real vanity is exposed. Tailors, hosiers, and hatters are a loyal clan; but it must be admitted that they all have a strange look on their faces. That look is due to the revelations of male vanity which they carry locked eternally in their breasts. To these purveyors men give themselves away and are shameless before them. The ordinary man well knows that he is vain. Besides, you can see him surreptitiously glancing at himself in shop windows any day. And in some American periodicals there are positively more advertisements of men’s finery than of women’s.

Again, men try to explain the feminine cult of clothes by asserting that women are like sheep and must follow one another. What one does all must do. This argument is more than insincere; it is impudent. For women show much wider originality and variations of attire among themselves than men do among themselves. Half a dozen average well-dressed women will be as different one from another as half a dozen flowers of different species; you could distinguish between them half a mile off. But half a dozen well-dressed men would be indistinguishably alike if you decapitated them. It is notorious that men are the slaves of fashion. If a new shade of cravat or sock comes out, the city will be painted with that shade in less than a week. One year every handkerchief is worn in the sleeve. Another year it will be shocking to wear a handkerchief in the sleeve, because the only proper place for wearing a handkerchief is in a pocket over the heart. At the slightest change in the fashionable diameter of the leg of a pair of trousers every man with adequate cash or credit will rush privily to his tailor’s, and in sixty hours a parcel will arrive at that man’s home marked: ‘Very urgent. Deliver at once.’

Men have a perfect passion for being exactly like other men--not merely in clothes, but in everything. So much so that they cannot bear to think that there are men unlike themselves. Thus men will form clubs of which all the members are alike in some important point, so that while they are in the club they will live under the beautiful illusion of universal resemblance. They loathe opinions which are unfashionable, or unfashionable in their particular set and environment; they will not even read about such opinions if they can help it; they are ready to imprison or kill (and often actually have imprisoned or killed) the holders of such opinions, solely because they are not in the fashion. And could a man with a bag-wig walk down the Strand or Fifth Avenue without having it knocked off or being arrested for obstruction? He could not. Nevertheless a bag-wig is less preposterous than a silk hat.

Yet again, men try to explain the feminine cult of clothes by asserting that women as a sex really enjoy the huge task of dressing, and really enjoy spending money for the sake of spending money, and have no brains above personal embellishment. All these arguments are patently ridiculous. To very many well-dressed women the task of dressing is naught but a tedious and heavy burden. As for brains, it frequently occurs that the women with the most intelligence (intelligence far surpassing that of the average man) are the most _chic_. In regard to the enjoyment of mere spending, the charge is true. It is, however, equally true of men. I could refer to tailors, hosiers, and hatters, but I will not. Take, for a change, two dining parties at a restaurant, one consisting of three men and three women, the other consisting of six men. The bill of the six men will be the heavier. As a sex men, in the French phrase, ‘refuse themselves nothing.’ And their felicity in spending for the sake of spending is touchingly boyish.

Whatever may be the explanation of the subjection of women to costly fashion, we are now, at any rate, in a position to say what the explanation is _not_. It is not that women are specially vain. It is not that women are specially like sheep. It is not that they lack intelligence. It is not that they enjoy the tyranny. And it is not that they are spendthrift. If the explanation lay in any of these directions men would read fashion papers, go to sales, and change their suits four times a day.

II

You will say:

‘Women adorn themselves in order to be attractive to the other sex.’

This is true, but only to a limited extent. And men also adorn themselves in order to be attractive to the other sex. Moreover, a woman who has found the man of her desire, and is utterly satisfied therewith, will still go on adorning herself, even though the man in question has made it quite clear that she would attract him just as strongly in a sack as in a Poiret gown. Further, some fashions do not attract; they excite ridicule rather than admiration; yet they are persisted in. And women of the classes who do not and cannot cultivate fashionableness succeed at least as well as the other woman in attracting men, even when these men by reason of laborious lives have almost no leisure for dalliance. The truth is that the competition among women for men is chiefly a legend--not wholly. There are more women than men, but not many more. Women want marriage more than men want marriage, but not much more. Competition is by no means so fierce that women have to perform prodigies of self-ornamentation in order to inveigle a fellow-creature so simple that he worries about the tint of his own necktie and socks; and the idea of such a phenomenon is derogatory to women. After all, nature has the business of sex-attraction in hand, and she is not dependent on fashions. Long before fashions had been evolved she managed it precisely as well as she manages it to-day. She relies, not upon textile stuffs, but upon the stuff that dreams are made on; namely, glances, gestures, actions, and speech.

The authentic major explanation of the expensive fashionableness of women must be sought in another direction. As usual, men are at the bottom of the affair. When woman gloriously dresses herself up to go out, she does so in order to prove to the world something which man wants to be proved to the world. In old days the two attributes which man held in the highest esteem were wealth and idleness. To be poor was shameful, and to work for a living was shameful. Man, therefore, had to demonstrate publicly that he was neither needy nor industrious. One of the best methods of demonstration was costume, and the costume of the successful man in those days was very expensive, and so gorgeous and delicate as to make toil impossible for him.

The time came when man ceased to be proud of his own idleness, and his costume altered accordingly. Then the duty of demonstrating wealth and idleness by means of costume fell on woman. Man could not do the demonstration on his own person--he was too busy--and hence he employed the lady to be expensive on his behalf. Such was her function, and still is her function. The Rue de la Paix is based firmly on the distant past. Assuredly long years will elapse before feminine costume ceases to be used as a demonstration that man possesses the attributes that are most admired. Estates demonstrate the possession of those attributes; bonds demonstrate the possession of those attributes. But estates are a fixture, and bonds are kept in a safe. Costume walks about; your wife can take it to the seaside with her; the world cannot help noticing it; and it has the further advantage of ministering to the senses.

The proofs of the substantial correctness of this explanation of women’s dress are innumerable. Perhaps the principal proof is that the very man who grumbles at fashionableness in women would be the first to complain if his wife started to ignore fashion and to dress merely for comfort, utility, and charm. No man objects to the inexpensiveness of his wife’s clothes, but every man objects to them looking inexpensive. The advertised lure of a blouse marked one pound at a sale is that it has the air of a blouse costing two pounds. Suppose a rich man sees a delightful typewriting young woman walking down the street, falls in love with her, and marries her. Now, although the clothes in which he saw her suited her admirably in every way, and although she has simple tastes, and more elaborate clothes do not suit her so well, the first thing she has to do on marriage is to alter her style of dress for a more expensive style. Otherwise the man will say: ‘I don’t want my wife to look like a clerk.’ In other words: ‘I insist on my wife demonstrating to the universe that I possess wealth and can afford to keep her idle on my behalf.’ Even in small provincial towns where personal adornment is theoretically discouraged, and where people preach the entirely false maxim that externals don’t matter--even there the theory holds good. The middle-class wife will have her sealskin coat before she has her automobile. Fur coats are detestable garments to walk in, but real sealskin is a symbol which cannot be denied.

And it is as important that that costume should prove idleness as that it should prove wealth. Hence the fragility of extremely fashionable costumes, and their unpracticalness. The fashionable costume must be of such a nature that the least touch of the workaday world will ruin it; and it must go beyond this--it must be of such a nature that the wearer is actually prevented by it from her full and proper activity. An unconsidered movement would rip it to pieces. Rich Chinese males till recently kept their finger-nails so long that it was impossible for them to use their hands, and they maimed females so that they could not walk. Both sexes were thus rendered helpless, and the ability to be futile was proved like a problem of Euclid. We laugh at that. Crinolines were admirably designed to hinder honest work. And we laugh at crinolines too. But we still have the corset, though the corset is not the homicidal contrivance it once was. And we have the high-heeled shoe, higher than ever. You say: ‘But women have high heels to increase their apparent height.’ Not a bit! All women whose business it is to demonstrate idleness to the universe wear high heels, because high heels are a clear presumption that the wearer is not obliged really to exert herself. If a woman with a rich husband is so inordinately tall that she is ashamed of her height, she will wear high heels to prove that her husband is rich. And, not to be outdone, the delightful typewriting girl walking down the street at 8.30 A.M. will also wear high heels--and each hurried step she takes is a miracle of balance, pluck, and endurance. Life is marvellous.

III

You will say:

‘Life may be marvellous, but these revelations about human motives are terrible, and they depress us.’

They ought not to depress you. The saving quality about human motives is that they are so human, and therefore so forgivable. And, be it remembered, I have not asserted that the demonstration of wealth and leisure is the sole explanation of fashionableness. I have already referred to the desire to be attractive; and to this must be added the sense of beauty, which is nearly allied to it. The woman who bedecks herself is actuated by all three motives--the motive of ostentation (to satisfy primarily the man), the motive to attract, and the motive to satisfy the sense of beauty.

As regards the last, it may be said that the sense of beauty does not regularly improve in mankind, like, for instance, the sense of justice. No feminine raiment has ever equalled the classic Greek, which was not costly. But then the Greeks were not worried by too much wealth. And the Greek dress would be highly inconvenient without the Greek daily life, and especially without the Greek climate. And I doubt if nowadays we should care greatly for the Greek life. Still, the sense of beauty does emphatically exist among us, and the desire of women to be attractive is quite as powerful as it was in the time of Aspasia. These two motives are constantly, and often victoriously, fighting against the motive of ostentation, and it is probably the interplay of the three motives that produces the continual confusing and expensive changes of fashion, as has been well argued by Professor Franklin Henry Giddings, one of the most brilliant social philosophers in the United States.

‘But all this must be altered!’ the ardent among you will cry out. ‘In future women must dress solely to be attractive and to satisfy the sense of beauty.’