CHAPTER IV.. Fashions and Manners, Victorian Days

FASHIONS AND MANNERS, VICTORIAN DAYS

The boy who is strong and healthy, overflowing with animal spirits, enjoys life in a way that is denied to his slighter-framed, more delicate brother. Exercise imparts to him a physical exuberance to which the other is a stranger. But Nature is kind. If she withholds her gifts in one direction she bestows them in another. She grants the enjoyment of sedentary pursuits to those to whom she has denied hardier pleasures.

During my schooldays I spent many happy hours alone with book or pen or pencil. My father was fond of reading, and for a man of his limited means, possessed a good collection of books; a considerable number of the volumes of Bohn's Standard Library as well as Boswell's Life of Johnson, Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy, Butler's Hudibras, Bailey's Festus, Gil Blas, Don Quixote, Pilgrim's Progress, the Arabian Nights, Shakespeare, most of the poets from Chaucer down; and of novels, Bulwer Lytton's, Scott's, Dickens' and Thackeray's. These are the books I best remember, but there were others of classic fame, and I read them all; but not, I fear to much advantage, for though I have read many books it has been without much method, just as fancy led, and study, memory and judgment have been little considered. Still, unsystematic reading is better than no reading, and, as someone has said, "a phrase may fructify if it falls on receptive soil."

I never in my boyhood or youth, except on short visits to relatives, enjoyed the advantage, by living in the country, of becoming intimate with rural life. We resided at Derby in a terrace on the outskirt of the town, much to my dislike, for monotonous rows of houses I have ever hated. One's home should be one's friend and possess some special feature of its own, even in its outward aspect, to love and remember. As George Eliot says: "We get the fonder of our houses if they have a physiognomy of their own, as our friends have."

In my schooldays, country walks, pursued as far as health and strength allowed, were my greatest pleasure, sometimes taken alone, sometimes with a companion. The quiet valley of the Trent at Repton, Anchor Church, Knoll Hills, the long bridge at Swarkestone, the charming little country town of Melbourne, the wooded beauties of Duffield and Belper, the ozier beds of Spondon; how often have I trod their fields, their woods, their lanes, their paths; and how pleasantly the memory of it all comes back to me now!

In those days fashions and manners differed greatly from those of to-day. Ladies wore the crinoline (successor to the hoop of earlier times), chignons and other absurdities, but had not ventured upon short skirts or cigarettes. They were much given to blushing, now a lost art; and to swooning, a thing of the past; the "vapours" of the eighteenth century had, happily, vanished for ever; but athletic exercises, such as girls enjoy to-day, were then undreamed of. Why has the pretty art of blushing gone? One now never sees a blush to mantle on the cheek of beauty. Does the blood of feminine youth flow steadier than it did, or has the more unrestrained intercourse of the sexes banished the sweet consciousness that so often brought the crimson to a maiden's face? The manners of maidens had more of reserve and formality then. The off-hand style, the nod of the head, the casual "how d'ye do," were unknown. Woman has not now the same desire to appear always graceful; she adopts a manly gait, talks louder, plays hockey, rides horseback astride, and boldly enters hotel smoking rooms and railway smoking compartments without apology.

When walking with a lady, old or young, in those days, the gentleman would offer his arm and she would take it. The curtsey was still observed but gradually disappearing. When about nineteen years of age, I remember being introduced to one of the young beauties of the town, who I had long secretly admired. She made me a profound and graceful curtsey--feminine homage to my budding manhood. The first curtsey I remember receiving, except of course in the stately ceremonies of the dance. For many a day afterwards my cheek glowed with pleasure at the recollection of that sweet obeisance. She became my sweetheart, temporarily; but a born butterfly, she soon fluttered away, leaving me disconsolate--for a time!

Women then wrote a sloping hand, delicate penmanship, to distinguish them from men; crossed and re-crossed their letters, and were greatly addicted to postscripts.

The men? Well, they wore mutton chop whiskers, or, if Nature was bountiful, affected the Dundreary style, which gave a man great distinction, and, if allied to good looks, made him perfectly irresistible. They wore "Champagne Charley" coats, fancy waistcoats, frilled-fronted shirts, relic of the lace and ruffles of Elizabeth's days; velvet smoking caps, embroidered slippers, elastic-side boots and chimney pot hats.

At eighteen years of age I had my first frock coat and tall hat. Some of my companions, happy youths! enjoyed this distinction at sixteen or seventeen. These adornments were of course for Sunday wear; no weekday clothes were worn on Sundays then. My frock coat was of West of England broadcloth, shiny and smooth. Sunday attire was incomplete without light kid gloves, lavender or lemon being the favourite shade for a young man with any pretension to style.

Next in importance to my first frock coat ranked my first portmanteau; it was a present, and supplanted the carpet bag which, up to then, to my profound disgust, I had to use on visits to my relatives. The portmanteau was the sign of youth and progress; old-fashioned people stuck to the carpet bag.

Man's attire has changed for the better; and woman's, with all its abbreviations and shortcomings, is, on the whole, more rational; though in the domain of Fashion her vagaries will last no doubt as long as--woman is woman; and if ever that shall cease to be, the charm of life will be over.

With man the jacket suit, the soft hat, the soft shirt, the turn-down collar, mark the transition from starch and stiffness to ease and comfort; and Time in his course has brought no greater boon than this; except, perhaps, the change that marks our funeral customs. In those days, hatbands, gloves and scarves were provided by the bereaved family to the relatives and friends who attended the obsequies; and all of kinship close or remote, were invited from far and near. Hearse and coaches and nodding plumes and mutes added to the expense, and many a family of moderate means suffered terrible privation from the costliness of these burial customs, which, happily, now are fast disappearing.

Beds, in those days, were warmed with copper warming pans, and nightcaps adorned the slumbering heads of both sexes. Spittoons were part of ordinary household furniture. To colour a meerschaum was the ambition of smokers, swearing was considered neither low nor vulgar, and snuffing was fashionable. Many most respectable men chewed tobacco, and to carry one's liquor well was a gentlemanly accomplishment.

Garrotters pursued their calling, deterred only by the cat-o'-nine tails, pickpockets abounded and burglaries were common.

The antimacassar and the family album; in what veneration they were held! The antimacassar, as its name implies, was designed to protect chairs and couches from the disfiguring stains of macassar oil, then liberally used in the adornment of the hair which received much attention. A parting, of geometrical precision, at the back of the head was often affected by men of dressy habits, who sometimes also wore a carefully arranged curl at the front; and manly locks, if luxuriant enough, were not infrequently permitted to fall in careless profusion over the collar of the coat.

Of the family album I would rather not speak. It is scarcely yet extinct. A respectable silence shall accompany its departing days.

Perhaps these things may to some appear mere trivialities; but to recall them awakens many memories, brings back thoughts of bygone days--days illumined with the sunshine of Youth and Hope on which it is pleasant to linger. As someone has finely said: "We lose a proper sense of the richness of life if we do not look back on the scenes of our youth with imagination and warmth."