THE NEW ENGLANDER. No. II. ᎪᏢ ᎡᎱᏞ, 1843. TASTE AND FASHION. In the advance of human society towards a finished state, there are two distinct emancipations to be achieved; that which liberates Truth and Reason from the constraints of force, and that which liberates Beauty and Taste from the fetters of fashion. In our modern doctrines of intellectual and religious liberty, we see the first named stage already passed. The other we shall reach in due time. And, when it comes, it will be a more magnificent revolution than many have begun to suspect. As the first opens a daylight of knowledge and science on the world, so the other will add a charm to every thing on which the daylight falls, revealing new forms of beauty in the outward life, new manners and sentiments; banishing, on the one hand, what is rude and unbecoming, and reducing, on the other, the high-born conventionalisms and misnamed elegancies, which have heretofore disfigured society. The last and finishing stage of human advance ment, as any reflecting person may see, must be accomplished by the discipline of Taste-it must be that stage in which Beauty descends from heaven to be the clothing of spiritual intelligence and the grace of Christian piety. Zeal and be Vol. I. 20 nevolence must learn to put on beauty and society must be charmed to coalescence in that simple justness of feeling, and grace of conduct, which free our outward state of all its annoyances, and fill it with pleasing ornament. Hitherto Taste and Beauty, we have said, are under the slavery of Fashion. And yet it is remarkable, that a great part of mankind do actually suppose Taste and Fashion to be very nearly the same thing. This, in fact, is the slavery of Fashion, that it is able so to tyrannize over the intelligent perceptions of men, as even to extirpate the distinct idea of Taste, and take the whole empire to itself. Idolatry is not more opposite to religion, or tyranny to government, or falsehood to truth, than Fashion to Taste, and yet a large part of mankind are scarcely able to distinguish between them, or believe that there is any distinction. Taste, they even think, is Fashion, and what is fashionable is of course tasteful. Sorely too do they pay for their error. It is one that disfigures their mind; afflicts, drudges and degrades their life; and lays them under the power of an oppression more uncomfortable and real than any that modern liberty has risen upon, and cloven down with arms. Here then is a great idea to be realized the emancipation of Tasteto enforce a recognition of its distinctness, in all high points, from fashion; and the right it has, in its own nature, to have an undivided sway. Let it not be supposed that we are about to forget all discretion, in a useless and hopeless crusade against existing fashions. We shall not throw ourselves under the wheels of this idol. We fully accord the wisdom of Johnson, when he declares that "few enterprises are so hopeless as a contest against fashion." We seek no sudden remedy. We would only endeavor, as far as it lies in us, to produce a just opinion of the merits of fashion, and also a just opinion of the merits of taste; such as will incline us more towards the latter, and give us a growing disrelish of the former, as undignified and pernicious. The good we expect to realize, is not by raising a rebellion, but by cutting off the king's resources. modesty, all that we include in mental beauty, he need not have said a word about the head-dresses. To prevent misunderstanding, we may as well say too, that it is not merely with fashion, as bearing rule in dress, that we are to be concerned. Fashion extends its power not only to dress and the modes of society, but it exerts a pernicious sway over architecture, furniture, gardening, music, the domestic relations, literature, opinions, moral feeling, religious prejudices-every thing in fact, which belongs to the creative and voluntary power of man. We are to speak of fashion as a POWER, and not of its particu lar manifestations, any farther than these are necessary to characterize it. The most convenient illustrations of fashion are found in the article of dress, and such we shall not scruple to use. Our opinion on this particular head, is not that we are to spurn all conformity to the current modes of dress and forms Fashion is like sin; no merely of society. The conformity, howexpulsive effort can destroy it. It ever, should only be slow and parcan be expelled only by a higher tial, or with such variations as to love. When the eloquent old monk show that taste is consulted, and Connecte went through England, that the submission yielded is yieldpreaching down the steeple head- ed not to fashion, but as a courtesy dresses, the ladies were even per- due to society. There must be cursuaded to go out of the churches rent modes of dress and intercourse. and make a bonfire of their capitals. It is not more necessary that our And so strong was the feeling ex- coins should be stamped, to show cited against these absurdities, that for what they are to pass, than that the people would even stone them we ourselves should be. But the down in the street. What was the difficulty is, that where the current result? "The women," says Para- stamp is given by the arbitrary apdin, "that, like snails in a fright, pointment of fashion, it signifies had drawn in their horns, shot them nothing; the lowest and most truly out again as soon as the danger was vulgar in character, can receive the over." They had tried themselves stamp as well, and wear it as confito give up the obnoxious ornament, dently as the most elevated. Let and the people had tried to have the current style be adjusted by them, but it could not be done. So taste, and then the wearer will sigvain is the endeavor to preach out nify plainly enough who he is, and fashion, without preaching in taste. show himself into the grade where If the good old monk had been able he belongs. The individual charin a day, to preach into the minds acteristics of society will appear of the English women a cultivated too with a picturesque and lively intellect, a refined criticism, a true effect, and yet there will be as little room for oddity and absurdity as now, and probably less; for the mutual taste will be ever drawing towards certain forms of inherent beauty and convenience. We come now to the question, What is fashion? What is taste? Let us endeavor to search out the root of our distinction. In its higher and more sovereign manifestations, fashion is rooted in a desire of caste. Accordingly, in those countries where caste is made an article of religion, and can not therefore be encroached upon, the modes of dress and ceremonies of social life undergo no change, for none is here necessary to keep imitation at a distance. But, in the western countries of the old world, the liberty enjoyed so far endangers caste, that the only way to keep distance, is to lead off in a perpetual round of change in the dress, equipage, and social forms of life. Some new fashion is started, in a quarter entitled to lead. The example is then followed by others in the higher circle, not in the way of imitation, but rather in the way of pride, and under a sort of tacit agreement in the circle, to keep distance and preserve caste. But the new style soon grows common, descending upon a second class called the vulgar, by the circle just named; for a feeling of caste also strays down to these, and they are ambitious to be as like as possible, to what is forever on the stretch to be unlike them. Or, perhaps, the new style becomes so associated with elegance, that they are constrained to suffer it as a model of taste. By this time the fashion has, of course, gone by in the circle where it began. Truth obliges us to add that what we call fashion in our country, is almost wholly of the second circle. We originate no fashion, unless it be in matters where some kind of false taste is stereotyped and prop agated by an over zealous admiration. Accordingly, the term fashion carries a sense of imitation with it, on this side of the Atlantic, which is far less prominent on the other. Fashionable people are, with us, a caste-like people for the most part, such as covet the air and show of caste, whatever may be come of the substance. They watch the modes of noble dandyism and royalty, on the other side of the water, hasting to receive the very things which the originators invent to put them at a distance, and wearing them, not to give their assent to the insult, as we might think, but with the highest satisfaction or even pride! Such is the general history of fashion. When you come to ask where the legislature of fashion is, or who it is that originates a given fashion, it will be more difficult to answer. It may be in the French court, or in the lady patronesses of Almacks, or in some new Brummel, who is just now raging as the dogstar of fashion in London. According to Montaigne, the French fashions, at least in his day, were controlled with absolute sway by the court. "Whatever," he says, "is done at court, passes for a rule throughout the rest of France. Let the courtiers but discontinue those tun-bellied doublets, that make us look like I know not what, those long effeminate locks of hair, and you will see them all presently vanished and cried down." If we go on farther, to ask what it is that leads the originator of a fashion to adopt this rather than some other, no certain answer can be given. Sometimes, though seldom, it is a real effort of taste. Sometimes it is the mere caprice of a tailor, or a milliner; or this tailor or milliner may have been bribed by some great manufacturer to start the style in question, and give him a market for a particular kind of goods. Or the object may be to compliment some prince. Henry VIII, for example, being exceeding ly corpulent, suddenly saw himself surrounded by corpulent ministers, and a corpulent people-the whole male nation was stuffed from the shoulders downwards; and so far was the extravagance carried, that an act of Parliament was passed, forbidding the use of stuffing, under certain specified names. An amusing story is related of the manner in which the law was evaded, which shows, at the same time, to what a pitch of absurdity the fashion was carried. A certain person was arrested, who proved that he had used no one of the cloths named in the law, by showing that he used, instead, a pair of sheets, two tablecloths, ten napkins, four shirts, a brush, a glass, a comb, night-caps, &c. &c. Sometimes a fashion originates in the effort to hide some deformity. Thus the long bag-wigs are said to have been invented to relieve the hunch back of the Duke of Brunswick. The huge sleeves lately worn by the ladies, were an excellent disguise for a bad arm, and were probably invented for that object. On the whole, we can do no better, as regards the origin of fashions, than to say that they are chosen without any regard to the inherent beauty of nature's forms, and sacrifice, if it so happen, all comfort. They are the work of caste, which goes dodging through so many modes of absurdity, to escape imitation and maintain exclusive position. Having thus distinguished the radical idea of fashion, we will next inquire what we are to understand by taste. It is much to be regretted that we have, in English, no better word than a mere figure derived from the palate, to signify one of the highest and most divine attributes of the mind. The term aesthetic, which the Germans have borrowed from V the Greek, has the same relation to all the senses, which taste has to the palate; and they mean, by the æsthetic faculty, that which distinguishes all beauty. It is the critical power-the power of forms-and is to the clothing of truth, what the reason is to the discovery or elimination of truth. By our very feeble and flat word taste, we mean, or ought to mean, the same thing. It is that which distinguishes the glorious and fair in all earthly things, and especially their divinely constituted relation to truth and the life of mind. The highest known example of taste is that of the Almighty, when he invents the forms, colors and proportions, of this visible creation. His conceptions were all original. He did not copy from the sight of previous worlds, but he had all beauty, all the colors and forms of things in his own creative fancy, saw them as distinctly, loved them as much, before he gave them outward reality as after. "Then deep retired In his unfathomed essence viewed the forms, The forms eternal of created things; The radiant sun, the moon's nocturnal lamp, The mountains, woods and streams, the rolling globe, And wisdom's mien celestial. From the first waves, cold, And clear autumnal skies and vernal showers, And all the fair variety of things." The whole fabric of creation is an exertion of taste, and we refer to this high example because we know of no other which is sufficient to evolve our idea. Taste, in man, is every way resembled to this power of form displayed in creation, except that it is a capacity slowly cultivated and matured, and not inherently complete like the divine. It is a power which goes to school, |