The Gentlemen's Book of Etiquette and Manual of...

“It is simple nonsense to talk of modern civilization, and rejoice that the cruelties of the dark ages can never be perpetrated in these days and this country. I maintain that they are perpetrated freely, generally, daily, with the consent of the wretched victim himself, in the compulsion to wear evening clothes. Is there anything at once more comfortless or more hideous? Let us begin with what the delicate call limb-covers, which we are told were the invention of the Gauls, but I am inclined to think, of a much worse race, for it is clearly an anachronism to ascribe the discovery to a Venetian called Piantaleone, and it can only have been Inquisitors or demons who inflicted this scourge on the race of man, and his ninth-parts, the tailors, for I take it that both are equally bothered by the tight pantaloon. Let us pause awhile over this unsightly garment, and console ourselves with the reflection that as every country, and almost every year, has a different fashion in its make of it, we may at last be emancipated from it altogether, or at least be able to wear it à la Turque.

“But it is not all trousers that I rebel against. If I might wear linen appendices in summer, and fur continuations in winter, I would not groan, but it is the evening-dress that inflicts on the man who likes society the necessity of wearing the same trying cloth all the year round, so that under Boreas he catches colds, and under the dog-star he melts. This unmentionable, but most necessary disguise of the ‘human form divine,’ is one that never varies in this country, and therefore I must lay down the rule:—

“But the tortures of evening dress do not end with our lower limbs. Of all the iniquities perpetrated under the Reign of Terror, none has lasted so long as that of the strait-jacket, which was palmed off on the people as a ‘habit de compagnie.’ If it were necessary to sing a hymn of praise to Robespierre, Marat, and Co., I would rather take the guillotine as my subject to extol than the swallow tail. And yet we endure the stiffness, unsightliness, uncomfortableness, and want of grace of the latter, with more resignation than that with which Charlotte Corday put her beautiful neck into the ‘trou d’enfer’ of the former. Fortunately modern republicanism has triumphed over ancient etiquette, and the tail-coat of to-day is looser and more easy than it was twenty years ago. I can only say, let us never strive to make it bearable, till we have abolished it. Let us abjure such vulgarities as silk collars, white silk linings, and so forth, which attempt to beautify this monstrosity, as a hangman might wreathe his gallows with roses. The plainer the manner in which you wear your misery, the better.

“Then, again, the black waistcoat, stiff, tight, and comfortless. Fancy Falstaff in a ball-dress such as we now wear. No amount of embroidery, gold-trimmings, or jewel-buttons will render such an infliction grateful to the mass. The best plan is to wear thorough mourning for your wretchedness. In France and America, the cooler white waistcoat is admitted. However, as we have it, let us make the best of it, and not parade our misery by hideous ornamentation. The only evening waistcoat for all purposes for a man of taste is one of simple black, with the simplest possible buttons.

“These three items never vary for dinner-party, muffin-worry, or ball. The only distinction allowed is in the neck-tie. For dinner, the opera, and balls, this must be white, and the smaller the better. It should be too, of a washable texture, not silk, nor netted, nor hanging down, nor of any foppish production, but a simple, white tie, without embroidery. The black tie is admitted for evening parties, and should be equally simple. The shirt-front, which figures under the tie should be plain, with unpretending small plaits. The glove must be white, not yellow. Recently, indeed, a fashion has sprung up of wearing lavender gloves in the evening. They are economical, and as all economy is an abomination, must be avoided. Gloves should always be worn at a ball. At a dinner-party in town they should be worn on entering the room, and drawn off for dinner. While, on the one hand, we must avoid the awkwardness of a gallant sea-captain who, wearing no gloves at a dance, excused himself to his partner by saying, ‘Never mind, miss, I can wash my hands when I’ve done dancing,’ we have no need, in the present day, to copy the Roman gentleman mentioned by Athenæus, who wore gloves at dinner that he might pick his meat from the hot dishes more rapidly than the bare-handed guests. As to gloves at tea-parties and so forth, we are generally safer with than without them. If it is quite a small party, we may leave them in our pocket, and in the country they are scarcely expected to be worn; but ‘touch not a cat but with a glove;’ you are always safer with them.

“I must not quit this subject without assuring myself that my reader knows more about it now than he did before. In fact I have taken one thing for granted, viz., that he knows what it is to be dressed, and what undressed. Of course I do not suppose him to be in the blissful state of ignorance on the subject once enjoyed by our first parents. I use the words ‘dressed’ and ‘undressed’ rather in the sense meant by a military tailor, or a cook with reference to a salad. You need not be shocked. I am one of those people who wear spectacles for fear of seeing anything with the naked eye. I am the soul of scrupulosity. But I am wondering whether everybody arranges his wardrobe as our ungrammatical nurses used to do ours, under the heads of ‘best, second-best, third-best,’ and so on, and knows what things ought to be placed under each. To be ‘undressed’ is to be dressed for work and ordinary occupations, to wear a coat which you do not fear to spoil, and a neck-tie which your ink-stand will not object to, but your acquaintance might. To be ‘dressed,’ on the other hand, since by dress we show our respect for society at large, or the persons with whom we are to mingle, is to be clothed in the garments which the said society pronounces as suitable to particular occasions; so that evening dress in the morning, morning dress in the evening, and top boots and a red coat for walking, may all be called ‘undress,’ if not positively ‘bad dress.’

“To be ‘little dressed,’ is to wear old things, of a make that is no longer the fashion, having no pretension to elegance, artistic beauty, or ornament. It is also to wear lounging clothes on occasions which demand some amount of precision. To be ‘much dressed’ is to be in the extreme of the fashion, with bran new clothes, jewelry, and ornaments, with a touch of extravagance and gaiety in your colors. Thus to wear patent leather boots and yellow gloves in a quiet morning stroll is to be much dressed, and certainly does not differ immensely from being badly dressed. To be ‘well dressed’ is the happy medium between these two, which is not given to every one to hold, inasmuch as good taste is rare, and is a sine quâ non thereof. Thus while you avoid ornament and all fastness, you must cultivate fashion, that is good fashion, in the make of your clothes. A man must not be made by his tailor, but should make him, educate him, give him his own good taste. To be well dressed is to be dressed precisely as the occasion, place, weather, your height, figure, position, age, and, remember it, your means require. It is to be clothed without peculiarity, pretension, or eccentricity; without violent colors, elaborate ornament, or senseless fashions, introduced, often, by tailors for their own profit. Good dressing is to wear as little jewelry as possible, to be scrupulously neat, clean, and fresh, and to carry your clothes as if you did not give them a thought.

“Then, too, there is a scale of honor among clothes, which must not be forgotten. Thus, a new coat is more honorable than an old one, a cut-away or shooting-coat than a dressing-gown, a frock-coat than a cut-away, a dark blue frock-coat than a black frock-coat, a tail-coat than a frock-coat. There is no honor at all in a blue tail-coat, however, except on a gentleman of eighty, accompanied with brass buttons and a buff waistcoat. There is more honor in an old hunting-coat than in a new one, in a uniform with a bullet hole in it than one without, in a fustian jacket and smock-frock than in a frock-coat, because they are types of labor, which is far more honorable than lounging. Again, light clothes are generally placed above dark ones, because they cannot be so long worn, and are, therefore, proofs of expenditure, alias money, which in this world is a commodity more honored than every other; but, on the other hand, tasteful dress is always more honorable than that which has only cost much. Light gloves are more esteemed than dark ones, and the prince of glove-colors is, undeniably, lavender.

“‘I should say Jones was a fast man,’ said a friend to me one day, ‘for he wears a white hat.’ If this idea of my companion’s be right, fastness may be said to consist mainly in peculiarity. There is certainly only one step from the sublimity of fastness to the ridiculousness of snobbery, and it is not always easy to say where the one ends and the other begins. A dandy, on the other hand, is the clothes on a man, not a man in clothes, a living lay figure who displays much dress, and is quite satisfied if you praise it without taking heed of him. A bear is in the opposite extreme; never dressed enough, and always very roughly; but he is almost as bad as the other, for he sacrifices everything to his ease and comfort. The off-hand style of dress only suits an off-hand character. It was, at one time, the fashion to affect a certain negligence, which was called poetic, and supposed to be the result of genius. An ill-tied, if not positively untied cravat was a sure sign of an unbridled imagination; and a waistcoat was held together by one button only, as if the swelling soul in the wearer’s bosom had burst all the rest. If, in addition to this, the hair was unbrushed and curly, you were certain of passing for a ‘man of soul.’ I should not recommend any young gentleman to adopt this style, unless, indeed, he can mouth a great deal, and has a good stock of quotations from the poets.

It is of no use to show me the clouds, unless I can positively see you in them, and no amount of negligence in your dress and person will convince me you are a genius, unless you produce an octavo volume of poems published by yourself. I confess I am glad that the négligé style, so common in novels of ten years back, has been succeeded by neatness. What we want is real ease in the clothes, and, for my part, I should rejoice to see the Knickerbocker style generally adopted.

“Besides the ordinary occasions treated of before, there are several special occasions requiring a change of dress. Most of our sports, together with marriage (which some people include in sports), come under this head. Now, the less change we make the better in the present day, particularly in the sports, where, if we are dressed with scrupulous accuracy, we are liable to be subjected to a comparison between our clothes and our skill. A man who wears a red coat to hunt in, should be able to hunt, and not sneak through gates or dodge over gaps. A few remarks on dresses worn in different sports may be useful. Having laid down the rule that a strict accuracy of sporting costume is no longer in good taste, we can dismiss shooting and fishing at once, with the warning that we must not dress well for either. An old coat with large pockets, gaiters in one case, and, if necessary, large boots in the other, thick shoes at any rate, a wide-awake, and a well-filled bag or basket at the end of the day, make up a most respectable sportsman of the lesser kind. Then for cricket you want nothing more unusual than flannel trousers, which should be quite plain, unless your club has adopted some colored stripe thereon, a colored flannel shirt of no very violent hue, the same colored cap, shoes with spikes in them, and a great coat.

“For hunting, lastly, you have to make more change, if only to insure your own comfort and safety. Thus cord-breeches and some kind of boots are indispensable. So are spurs, so a hunting-whip or crop; so too, if you do not wear a hat, is the strong round cap that is to save your valuable skull from cracking if you are thrown on your head. Again, I should pity the man who would attempt to hunt in a frock-coat or a dress-coat; and a scarf with a pin in it is much more convenient than a tie. But beyond these you need nothing out of the common way, but a pocketful of money. The red coat, for instance, is only worn by regular members of a hunt, and boys who ride over the hounds and like to display their ‘pinks.’ In any case you are better with an ordinary riding-coat of dark color, though undoubtedly the red is prettier in the field. If you will wear the latter, see that it is cut square, for the swallow-tail is obsolete, and worn only by the fine old boys who ‘hunted, sir, fifty years ago, sir, when I was a boy of fifteen, sir. Those were hunting days, sir; such runs and such leaps.’ Again, your ‘cords’ should be light in color and fine in quality; your waistcoat, if with a red coat, quite light too; your scarf of cashmere, of a buff color, and fastened with a small simple gold pin; your hat should be old, and your cap of dark green or black velvet, plated inside, and with a small stiff peak, should be made to look old. Lastly, for a choice of boots. The Hessians are more easily cleaned, and therefore less expensive to keep; the ‘tops’ are more natty.

Brummell, who cared more for the hunting-dress than the hunting itself, introduced the fashion of pipe-claying the tops of the latter, but the old original ‘mahoganies,’ of which the upper leathers are simply polished, seem to be coming into fashion again.”