A Collection of Essays and Fugitiv Writings. Noah Webster
countries of Europe from America; a feudal division of real property, and manufactures. Where vast estates are hereditary and unalienable, a great part of the people are dependent on the rich, and if the rich do not employ them, they must starve. Thus in England and France, a great landholder possesses a hundred times the property that is necessary for the subsistence of a family; and each landlord has perhaps a hundred families dependent on him for subsistence. On this statement, if the landlord should live penuriously, and supply his own family only with necessaries, all his dependents must starve. In order to subsist the ninety nine families, he must create wants, which their employment must supply; for the natural wants of a few rich people will not furnish employment for great multitudes of poor. Hence the good policy, the necessity of luxury in most European kingdoms. Hence originate all the changes and varieties of fashion. A gentleman or lady in London must not appear in public twice in the same suit. This is a regulation of custom, but it is highly political; for were the nobility and rich gentry to wear out all their clothes, one half the people must be beggars. The fashions of England and France are not merely matter of fancy: Fancy may dictate new and odd figures in dress; but the general design of frequent and continual changes of fashion, is wise systematic policy, at the courts of London and Paris.
But let us see with how little discretion and policy we adopt foreign luxuries. America is a young country, with small inequalities of property, and without manufactures. Few people are here dependent on the rich, for every man has an opportunity of becoming rich himself. Consequently few people are supported by the luxuries of the wealthy; and even these few are mostly foreigners.
But we have no body of manufacturers to support by dissipation. All our superfluities are imported, and the consumption of them in this country enriches the merchants and supports the poor of Europe. We are generous indeed! generous to a fault. This is the pernicious, the fatal effect of our dependence on foreign nations for our manners. We labor day and night, we sacrifice our peace and reputation, we defraud our public creditors, involve ourselves in debts, impoverish our country: Nay, many are willing to become bankrupts and take lodgings in a prison, for the sake of being as foolish as those nations which subsist their poor and grow rich and respectable by their follies.
No objection can be made to rich and elegant dresses among people of affluent circumstances. But perhaps we may safely calculate that one third of the expenses incurred by dress in this country, add nothing either to convenience or elegance.
A new dress is invented in London or Paris, not for the sake of superior elegance, because it frequently happens that a new dress is less rich and elegant than an old one; but for the sake of giving food to manufacturers. That new fashion is sent across the Atlantic; let it be ever so troublesome and uncouth, we admire its novelty; we adopt it because it is fashionable; and merely for a change, that may be made in half an hour by a tailor or a milliner, 20, 30, or 50,000 pounds are drawn from the capital stocks of property in America, to enrich nations which command our commerce and smile at our folly.
But it is not only the wealth of this country that is sacrificed by our servile imitation of other nations; our complaisance often requires us to dispense with good taste.
It will probably be admitted that amidst the infinite variety of dresses which are fashionable, during a course of ten or fifteen years, some of them must be more convenient and elegant than others. True taste in dress consists in setting off the person to the best advantage. That dress which unites the articles of convenience, simplicity and neatness, in the greatest perfection, must be considered as the most elegant. But true taste goes farther; it has reference to age, to shape, to complexion, and to the season of the year. The same dress which adorns a miss of fifteen, will be frightful on a venerable lady of seventy. The same dress will embellish one lady and disfigure another. But the passive disposition of Americans in receiving every mode that is offered them, sometimes reduces all ages, shapes and complexions to a level.
I will not undertake to say that people ought not, in the article of dress, to sacrifice taste to national interest. A sacrifice of that kind, in a manufacturing country, may be laudable; it will at least be pardonable. But in a reverse of situation, in America, where a waste of property and a group of political evils accompany a bad taste, the sacrifice admits of no apology.
It is not unfrequent to hear ladies complain severely of the inconvenience of fashion. Their good sense disapproves and their taste revolts at incumbrances. And yet where is the lady who would not sooner submit to any fatigue, rather than be ridiculous. I speak of ladies particularly; in point of expense, the gentlemens' dresses are exceptionable as well as the ladies; in point of convenience, the ladies are the greatest sufferers by fashion, as their dress admits of the greatest variety of incumbrances.
Perhaps the trouble of conforming entirely to the fashions of Europe is as great a tax upon the ladies, as the expense is to their husbands and parents.
One society of people, the Friends, are happily released from the tyranny and inconveniencies of fashion. However disagreeable the restraints of their religion may appear in other respects, it must be acknowledged that, in point of dress, the rules of their society conform to purity of taste.
Perhaps we may safely estimate, that the ladies of that society dress with two thirds of the expense which other ladies incur, even when the articles of their dress are equally rich and expensiv; the difference is saved by neglecting superfluous finery. And are not their taste in dress, their simplicity and neatness, universally admired? Does it not set off their persons to the best advantage? Do not gentlemen almost universally give the preference to the taste of Quaker ladies? Nay, I would ask, whether other ladies themselves, under a strong bias in favor of a tawdry dress, are not frequently lavishing encomiums on the superior elegance and convenience of the Friends' dresses? And how often do they sigh beneath the trouble of their own dress, and wish that particular articles would go out of fashion.
If there is any thing on earth, which can make a rational mind disgusted with society, it is that cruel necessity, which obliges a person to sacrifice both his interest and his taste, or run the hazard of being laughed at for his singularity.
In some Asiatic countries, people never change their modes of dress. This uniformity, which continues for ages, proceeds from the same principles as the monthly changes in England and France; both proceed from necessity and policy. Both arise from good causes which operate in the several governments; that is, the manners of each government are subservient to its particular interest. The reverse is true of this country. Our manners are wholly subservient to the interest of foreign nations. Where do we find, in dress or equipage, the least reference to the circumstances of this country! Is it not the sole ambition of the Americans to be just like other nations, without the means of supporting the resemblance? We ought not to harbor any spleen or prejudice against foreign kingdoms. This would be illiberal. They are wise, they are respectable. We should despise the man that piques himself on his own country, and treats all others with indiscriminate contempt. I wish to see much less jealousy and ill nature subsisting between the Americans and English. But in avoiding party spirit and resentment on the one hand, we should be very careful of servility on the other. There is a manly pride in true independence, which is equally remote from insolence and meanness; a pride that is characteristic of great minds. Have Americans discovered this pride since the declaration of peace? We boast of independence, and with propriety. But will not the same men, who glory in this great event, even in the midst of a gasconade, turn to a foreigner and ask him, "what is the latest fashion in Europe!" He has worn an elegant suit of clothes for six weeks; he might wear it a few weeks longer, but it has not so many buttons as the last suit of my lord –: He throws it aside, and gets one that has. The suit costs him a sum of money; but it keeps him in the fashion, and feeds the poor of Great Britain or France. It is a singular phenomenon, and to posterity it will appear incredible, that a nation of heroes, who have conquered armies, and raised an empire, should not have the spirit to say—we will wear our clothes as we please.
Let it not be thought that this is a trifling subject; a matter of no consequence. Mankind are governed by opinion; and while we flatter ourselves that we enjoy independence, because no foreign power can impose laws upon us, we are groaning beneath the tyranny of opinion; a tyranny more severe than the laws of monarchs; a dominion voluntary indeed, but for that reason, more effectual; an authority of manners which commands our services, and sweeps away the fruits of our