Reminiscences of Peace and War. Sara Agnes Rice Pryor
Vanity Fair; and lest it linger too delightfully in our memories, we must try to find some rift in the lute, some fly in the amber — not daring, however, to look beneath the surface.
And so we are fain to acknowledge that the evening gowns of these fair dames were liberal only in their skirts. The bodice was décolleté to the extremest limit — as I suppose it will always be. And then, as now, — as always, — there was no lack of wise men, usually youthful prophets, to preach against it, to read for our instruction Solomon's disrespectful allusions to jewels in the ears of fair women without discretion, and St. Paul's well-known remarks upon our foibles. "The idea of quoting Solomon as an authority on women," said my friend Agnes one day, as we walked from church. "I never quote Solomon! He knew a good many women without discretion, some hundreds of them; but he didn't live up to his convictions, and he changed his mind very often. He was to my thinking not at all a nice person to know."
"But how about St. Paul?" I ventured.
"I consider it very small in St. Paul to think so much about dress anyway! One would suppose the thorn in his own flesh would have made him tender toward others; and Timothy must have been a poor creature to be taken in by 'braided hair,' 'gold and pearls, and costly array.' Now, of course, we have a few of those things, and like to wear our hair neatly; but I don't see why they are not suitable for us so long as we don't live for them, nor seek to entangle Timothy."
"Well," I replied, "I never can feel it is at all my affair. I hear it often enough! But somehow St. Simeon Stylites, preaching away on his pillar, seems a great way off, and not to know the bearings of all he talks about. We listen to him dutifully; but I fancy if we amend our ways we will do it of our own selves, and not because of St. Simeon."
"I wouldn't mind St. Simeon," said my irate friend (she had worked herself up to a pitch of indignation); "probably he was old and venerable, and to be tolerated; but it hurts me to be preached to by a young thing like that minister to-day, as if I were a Babylonish woman! We don't 'walk haughtily with stretched-forth necks, walking and mincing as we go, making a tinkling with our feet.' And as to our 'changeable suits of apparel,' and the 'crimping pins,' do we live for these things? Our maids make a living by taking care of them while we are at church hoping to hear of something better than crimping pins."
The lady who expressed these heretical sentiments was, as I have remarked, my most intimate friend; and although not older than herself, I considered it my duty to reason with her. "But you see, my dear Agnes," I said, "we are obliged to be on the side of our young preacher, whether we like it or not. He is the white-plumed champion riding forth from the courts of purity and beauty of behavior. We wouldn't like to be the sable knight who emerges from the opposite direction."
"I would!" declared my young rebel. "Infantile clergymen should keep to the sins of their own sex. Nobody criticises men's dress. They are exempt. They may surround their countenances with Henry VIII ruffs, which make them look like the head of John the Baptist on a charger, — nobody calls them ridiculous. They wear the briefest surf costumes — nobody says they are indecent."
"But, my dear — "
"But, my dear, I know all about the matter of evening dress. I've studied it up. It is a time-honored fashion (I can show you all about it in my new encyclopædia). You remember I let you air your learning and quote old Tertullian. Did I look bored?"
"Not at all. You may tell me now. You can finish before we get home."
"Well, then, the décolleté bodice is not a new expression of total depravity. It is an old fashion, appearing in 1280, with stomacher of jewels. It reached England from Bohemia, but was then the fashion in Italy, Poland, and Spain. Those times were not conspicuous for sentiment, but were quite as moral as the times of the Greek chiton, or the Roman tunic, or the Norman robe, or the Saxon gown."
"But," I interrupted, "it was out of fashion in the high-necked days of Queen Elizabeth."
"Oh, she had her own reasons for disliking to see a suggestive bare throat! Queen Bess was not conspicuous for purity. Don't interrupt me — I'll prove everything by the book — lots of good women have worn low dresses. Madame Recamier was a pretty good woman, and so were our grandmothers, and so were the ladies of the Golden Age in Virginia who reared the boys that won our independence."
"All of which proves nothing," I declared; but we had reached our door on New York Avenue, and went in for our Sunday dinner. My friend did not inflict the encyclopædia. She had already quoted it. What was the use? We may be sure of one thing: no fashion has ever yet been discarded because it was abused. No Damascus blade has ever been keen enough to lop off an offending fashion.
1. "Life in Washington," by Mary J. Windle.
Chapter VI
Characteristics of Social Life in 1858 — Leaders in Society
There were many brilliant and beautiful women who escaped the notice of the society newsmonger of the day.
Mrs. Cyrus McCormick, recently married to the inventor of the great reaping machine, was one of these. Mr. McCormick, then a young man, was destined to be decorated by many European governments and to achieve a great fortune. His wife, just out of Miss Emma Willard's school, was very beautiful, very gentle, and winning. No sheaves garnered by her husband's famous reaper can compare with the sheaves from her own sowing, during a long life devoted to good deeds.
Then there were Mrs. Yulee, wife of the Senator from Florida, and her sisters, Mrs. Merrick and Mrs. Holt, all three noted for personal and intellectual charm; and beautiful Mrs. Robert J. Walker, who was perhaps the first of the coterie to be called to make a sacrifice for her country, exchanging the brilliant life in Washington for the hardships of Kansas — "bleeding Kansas," torn with dissensions among its "squatter sovereigns," and with a climate of stern severity, where food froze at night and must be broken with a hatchet for breakfast. Mrs. Walker shrank from the ordeal, for she was well fitted for gay society; but the President himself visited her and begged the sacrifice for the good of the country. She went, and bore her trials. They were only a little in advance of sterner trials ordained for some of her Washington friends. Nor must we fail to acknowledge the social influence of Mrs. Jefferson Davis, one of the most brilliant women of her time — greatly sought by cultivated men and women.
But the wittiest and brightest of them all was Mrs. Clay, the wife of the Senator from Alabama. She was extremely clever, the soul of every company. A costume ball at which she personated Mrs. Partington is still remembered in Washington. Mrs. Partington's sayings could not be arranged beforehand and conned for the occasion. Her malapropos replies must be improvised on the moment, and must moreover be seasoned with wit to redeem them from commonplace dulness. Mrs. Clay rose to the occasion, and her Mrs. Partington became the Mrs. Partington of the future.
The reader will not fail to observe the number of Southern women who were prominent in Mr. Buchanan's court. A correspondent of a leading New York paper1 has recently written an interesting article on this subject. He declares that the Southern women (before Lincoln's day) had long controlled the society of Washington. "With their natural and acquired graces, with their inherited taste and ability in social affairs, it was natural that the reins should fall to them. They represented a clique of aristocracy; they were recognized leaders who could afford to smile good-naturedly at the awkward and perplexed attempts of the women from the other sections — Mrs. Senator This, Mrs. Congressman That — to thread the ins and outs of Washington's social labyrinth. To none of these ladies was the thought pleasant of secession from the Union and consequent giving up whatever of social dominion she had acquired."
I wish I could give some idea of the "days at home" of these court ladies in Washington in 1858. The large public functions were all alike then as now, with this exception, that nearly every man present was Somebody, and every woman Somebody's wife.