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incredulity, but there is nothing really improbable in it. From the sixteenth century to our own day there is
hardly any form of torture that has not been inflicted on girls, and endured by women, in obedience to the
dictates of an unreasonable and monstrous Fashion. 'In order to obtain a real Spanish figure,' says Montaigne,
'what a Gehenna of suffering will not women endure, drawn in and compressed by great coches entering the
flesh; nay, sometimes they even die thereof.' 'A few days after my arrival at school,' Mrs. Somerville tells us
in her memoirs, 'although perfectly straight and well made, I was enclosed in stiff stays, with a steel busk in
front; while above my frock, bands drew my shoulders back till the shoulder-blades met. Then a steel rod
with a semicircle, which went under my chin, was clasped to the steel busk in my stays. In this constrained
state I and most of the younger girls had to prepare our lessons'; and in the life of Miss Edgeworth we read
that, being sent to a certain fashionable establishment, 'she underwent all the usual tortures of back-boards,
iron collars and dumbs, and also (because she was a very tiny person) the unusual one of being hung by the
neck to draw out the muscles and increase the growth,' a signal failure in her case. Indeed, instances of
absolute mutilation and misery are so common in the past that it is unnecessary to multiply them; but it is
LITERARY AND OTHER NOTES II 104
Reviews
really sad to think that in our own day a civilised woman can hang on to a cross-bar while her maid laces her
waist into a fifteen-inch circle. To begin with, the waist is not a circle at all, but an oval; nor can there be any
greater error than to imagine that an unnaturally small waist gives an air of grace, or even of slightness; to the
whole figure. Its effect, as a rule, is simply to exaggerate the width of the shoulders and the hips; and those
whose figures possess that stateliness which is called stoutness by the vulgar, convert what is a quality into a
defect by yielding to the silly edicts of Fashion on the subject of tight-lacing. The fashionable English waist,
also, is not merely far too small, and consequently quite out of proportion to the rest of the figure, but it is
worn far too low down. I use the expression 'worn' advisedly, for a waist nowadays seems to be regarded as
an article of apparel to be put on when and where one likes. A long waist always implies shortness of the
lower limbs, and, from the artistic point of view, has the effect of diminishing the height; and I am glad to see
that many of the most charming women in Paris are returning to the idea of the Directoire style of dress. This
style is not by any means perfect, but at least it has the merit of indicating the proper position of the waist. I
feel quite sure that all English women of culture and position will set their faces against such stupid and
dangerous practices as are related by Miss Leffler-Arnim. Fashion's motto is: Il faut souffrir pour être belle ;
but the motto of art and of common-sense is: Il faut être bête pour souffrir.
* * * * *
Talking of Fashion, a critic in the Pall Mall Gazette expresses his surprise that I should have allowed an
illustration of a hat, covered with 'the bodies of dead birds,' to appear in the first number of the Woman's
World; and as I have received many letters on the subject, it is only right that I should state my exact position
in the matter. Fashion is such an essential part of the mundus muliebris of our day, that it seems to me
absolutely necessary that its growth, development, and phases should be duly chronicled; and the historical
and practical value of such a record depends entirely upon its perfect fidelity to fact. Besides, it is quite easy
for the children of light to adapt almost any fashionable form of dress to the requirements of utility and the
demands of good taste. The Sarah Bernhardt tea-gown, for instance, figured in the present issue, has many
good points about it, and the gigantic dress-improver does not appear to me to be really essential to the mode; [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]