In his evening garb, which generally fits him, but which generally is
not pressed as to trouserlegs and coatsleeves, the Englishman makes
an exceedingly good appearance. The swallow-tailed coat was created for
the Englishman and he for it; but on all other occasions the well-dressed
American leads him--leads the world, for that matter. When a Frenchman
attires himself in his fanciest regalia he merely succeeds in looking
effeminate; whereas a German, under similar circumstances, bears a
wadded-in, bulged-out, stuffed-up appearance. I never saw a German
in Germany whose hat was not too small for him--just as I never saw a
Japanese in Occidental garb whose hat was not too large for him--if it
was a derby hat. If a German has on a pair of trousers that flare out
at the bottom and a coat with angel sleeves--I think that is the correct
technical term--and if the front of his coat is spangled over with
the largest-sized horn buttons obtainable he regards himself as being
dressed to the minute.
As for the women, I believe even the super-critical mantuamakers of
Paris have begun to concede that, as a nation, the American women
are the best-dressed women on earth. The French women have a way of
arranging their hair and of wearing their hats and of draping their furs
about their throats that is artistic beyond comparison. There may be a
word in some folks' dictionaries fitly to describe it--there is no such
word in mine; but when you have said that much you have said all there
is to say. A French woman's feet are not shod well. French shoes, like
all European shoes, are clumsy and awkward looking.
English children are well dressed because they are simply dressed;
and the children themselves, in contrast to the overdressed, overly
aggressive youngsters so frequently encountered in America, are mannerly
and self-effacing, and have sane, simple, childish tastes. Young English
girls are fresh and natural, but frequently frumpy; and the English
married woman is generally dressed in poor taste and appears to have
a most limited wardrobe. Apparently the husband buys all he wants, and
then, if there is any money left over, the wife gets it to spend on
herself.
Venturing one morning into a London chapel I saw a dowdy little woman of
this type kneeling in a pew, chanting the responses to the service. Her
blouse gaped open all the way down her back and she was saying with much
fervor, "We have left undone those things which we ought to have done."
She had too, but she didn't know it, as she knelt there unconsciously
supplying a personal illustration for the spoken line.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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