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1We don garment after garment, as if we grew like exogenous plants by addition without. Our outside and often thin and
2fanciful clothes are our epidermis, or false skin, which partakes not of our life, and may be stripped off here and
3there without fatal injury; our thicker garments, constantly worn, are our cellular integument, or cortex; but our
4shirts are our liber or true bark, which cannot be removed without girdling and so destroying the man. I believe that
5all races at some seasons wear something equivalent to the shirt. It is desirable that a man be clad so simply that he
6can lay his hands on himself in the dark, and that he live in all respects so compactly and preparedly, that, if an
7enemy take the town, he can, like the old philosopher, walk out the gate empty-handed without anxiety. While one thick
8garment is, for most purposes, as good as three thin ones, and cheap clothing can be obtained at prices really to suit
9customers; while a thick coat can be bought for five dollars, which will last as many years, thick pantaloons for two
10dollars, cowhide boots for a dollar and a half a pair, a summer hat for a quarter of a dollar, and a winter cap for
11sixty-two and a half cents, or a better be made at home at a nominal cost, where is he so poor that, clad in such a
12suit, of his own earning, there will not be found wise men to do him reverence? When I ask for a garment of a particular
13form, my tailoress tells me gravely, "They do not make them so now," not emphasizing the "They" at all, as if she quoted
14an authority as impersonal as the Fates, and I find it difficult to get made what I want, simply because she cannot
15believe that I mean what I say, that I am so rash. When I hear this oracular sentence, I am for a moment absorbed in
16thought, emphasizing to myself each word separately that I may come at the meaning of it, that I may find out by what
17degree of consanguinity They are related to me, and what authority they may have in an affair which affects me so
18nearly; and, finally, I am inclined to answer her with equal mystery, and without any more emphasis of the "they,"--"It
19is true, they did not make them so recently, but they do now." Of what use this measuring of me if she does not measure
20my character, but only the breadth of my shoulders, as it were a peg to hang the coat on? We worship not the Graces, nor
21the Parcæ, but Fashion. She spins and weaves and cuts with full authority. The head monkey at Paris puts on a
22traveller's cap, and all the monkeys in America do the same. I sometimes despair of getting anything quite simple and
23honest done in this world by the help of men. They would have to be passed through a powerful press first, to squeeze
24their old notions out of them, so that they would not soon get upon their legs again, and then there would be some one
25in the company with a maggot in his head, hatched from an egg deposited there nobody knows when, for not even fire kills
26these things, and you would have lost your labor. Nevertheless, we will not forget that some Egyptian wheat was handed
27down to us by a mummy. On the whole, I think that it cannot be maintained that dressing has in this or any country risen
28to the dignity of an art. At present men make shift to wear what they can get. Like shipwrecked sailors, they put on
29what they can find on the beach, and at a little distance, whether of space or time, laugh at each other's masquerade.
30Every generation laughs at the old fashions, but follows religiously the new. We are amused at beholding the costume of
31Henry VIII., or Queen Elizabeth, as much as if it was that of the King and Queen of the Cannibal Islands. All costume
32off a man is pitiful or grotesque. It is only the serious eye peering from and the sincere life passed within it, which
33restrain laughter and consecrate the costume of any people. Let Harlequin be taken with a fit of the colic and his
34trappings will have to serve that mood too. When the soldier is hit by a cannon ball rags are as becoming as purple. The
35childish and savage taste of men and women for new patterns keeps how many shaking and squinting through kaleidoscopes
36that they may discover the particular figure which this generation requires today. The manufacturers have learned that
37this taste is merely whimsical. Of two patterns which differ only by a few threads more or less of a particular color,
38the one will be sold readily, the other lie on the shelf, though it frequently happens that after the lapse of a season
39the latter becomes the most fashionable. Comparatively, tattooing is not the hideous custom which it is called. It is
40not barbarous merely because the printing is skin-deep and unalterable. I cannot believe that our factory system is the
41best mode by which men may get clothing. The condition of the operatives is becoming every day more like that of the
42English; and it cannot be wondered at, since, as far as I have heard or observed, the principal object is, not that
43mankind may be well and honestly clad, but, unquestionably, that corporations may be enriched. In the long run men hit
44only what they aim at. Therefore, though they should fail immediately, they had better aim at something high. As for a
45Shelter, I will not deny that this is now a necessary of life, though there are instances of men having done without it
46for long periods in colder countries than this. Samuel Laing says that "the Laplander in his skin dress, and in a skin
47bag which he puts over his head and shoulders, will sleep night after night on the snow--in a degree of cold which would
48extinguish the life of one exposed to it in any woollen clothing." He had seen them asleep thus. Yet he adds, "They are
49not hardier than other people." But, probably, man did not live long on the earth without discovering the convenience
50which there is in a house, the domestic comforts, which phrase may have originally signified the satisfactions of the
51house more than of the family; though these must be extremely partial and occasional in those climates where the house
52is associated in our thoughts with winter or the rainy season chiefly, and two thirds of the year, except for a parasol,
53is unnecessary. In our climate, in the summer, it was formerly almost solely a covering at night. In the Indian gazettes
54a wigwam was the symbol of a day's march, and a row of them cut or painted on the bark of a tree signified that so many
55times they had camped. Man was not made so large limbed and robust but that he must seek to narrow his world, and wall
56in a space such as fitted him. He was at first bare and out of doors; but though this was pleasant enough in serene and
57warm weather, by daylight, the rainy season and the winter, to say nothing of the torrid sun, would perhaps have nipped
58his race in the bud if he had not made haste to clothe himself with the shelter of a house. Adam and Eve, according to
59the fable, wore the bower before other clothes. Man wanted a home, a place of warmth, or comfort, first of physical
60warmth, then the warmth of the affections.
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