THE DRESS OF CIVILIZED WOMAN
A large part of the daughter of civilization is her dress--as it should
be. Some civilized women would lose half their charm without dress, and
some would lose all of it. The daughter Of modern civilization dressed
at her utmost best is a marvel of exquisite and beautiful art and
expense. All the lands, all the climes, and all the arts are laid under
tribute to furnish her forth. Her linen is from Belfast, her robe is
from Paris, her lace is from Venice, or Spain, or France, her feathers
are from the remote regions of Southern Africa, her furs from the remoter
region of the iceberg and the aurora, her fan from Japan, her diamonds
from Brazil, her bracelets from California, her pearls from Ceylon, her
cameos from Rome. She has gems and trinkets from buried Pompeii, and
others that graced comely Egyptian forms that have been dust and ashes
now for forty centuries. Her watch is from Geneva, her card case is from
China, her hair is from--from--I don't know where her hair is from; I
never could find out; that is, her other hair--her public hair, her
Sunday hair; I don't mean the hair she goes to bed with.
And that reminds me of a trifle. Any time you want to you can glance
around the carpet of a Pullman car, and go and pick up a hair-pin; but
not to save your life can you get any woman in that car to acknowledge
that hair-pin. Now, isn't that strange? But it's true. The woman who
has never swerved from cast-iron veracity and fidelity in her whole life
will, when confronted with this crucial test, deny her hair-pin. She
will deny that hair-pin before a hundred witnesses. I have stupidly got
into more trouble and more hot water trying to hunt up the owner of a
hair-pin in a Pullman than by any other indiscretion of my life. |