The Oregon daily journal., June 14, 1908, Page 34, Image 34

MBEIIIER?
XCT- SHOULD say," observed thee
distinguished London neurologist,
h "that you are suffering from
Americanitis, complicated with plat ,
f vlothes. Order a few new, stylish, gay suits : X
' and make a specialty of colors,"
'That's a queer prescription. What '
Shall I taket" .' .. , , ' . ' ;
: "Take--oh, take a walk,' take a hun-l-fdred
of them, one in the morning and the" ,
bother in the afternoon, to show off the new
vuits. You'll feel better the first day; you'll
be well in a couple of months.' ' i r
It was, indeed, a novel prescription,
lyet it is the prescription to. whiaii some
juonaon pnysicians are surntngaccprawg
to dispatches from that city-qr the fresh
enint of the spirits and the increasing of
the average man's working energies. . '
) Good clothes, they are saying, make
good, spirits.' The livelier 'raiment of men
i jhis year is as much the outcome of doctors'
jfidvices as it is of the tailors' ambitions. " a
i In .other words, . the newest London
yheory is that man's temperament is . deter
'inined largely by the clothes he wears; that v
gay hues tend to enliven the spirits; that
fomber apparel is productive of nervous
'diseases that have played such a part in
tecent years. : : .- , y 0 .. ; ; ;
' And the history of the peoples of the
tarth seems to back up this idea.' There ap
pears to have been only one great writer
pvho thought otherwise. t '
Stranir enough hew creature of th human-kind ;
hut their eyes to plalneat faota; and by tb mar In
ertia of Oblivion and Stupidity, llva, at aaaa In mldat
of Wonders and Terrors. . . ; Perhana not one In
I' m lifetime done It occur to yourtordlnary biped, of any
ruaMt-erkined Faaaant, that hla eatmenta and his '
lf are not one ant Indivisible; that he la naked,
without Vestments, till he buy or steal euoh, and with
forethoueht'aew and button them. Sartor Beaartua.
FINE, large, jaw-breakingvopinion, this
of Carlyle s and precisely the. opinion
which prominent London specialists of
this day, when the English bagman's
1 strongest card is his clothes, are doing their
(best to hammer out of existence, as, being an
-idea pitifully obsolete in trade, if not in morals
! and philosophy.
t "Clothes," certain London doctors are de
yclaring, "are a splendid tonic. The mere fact
of being smartly dressed is a strong mental
stimulant, and the man who is shabby and
, knows it is often less capable than his well
; dressed mental inferior.
f "A man in'a disgraceful hat, baggy-kneed
-, trousem and a shocking coat, who can appear
i -.' quite well possessed among a number of smart -,ly
dressed people, is either a millionaire or a
man of extraordinary brain power.
' ' . Tewnien can get along successfully in life
. without the moral support of smart clothing."
. London tailors, who, sooner or later, con
trive to give the etamp of their styles to men's
fasmonsaU over the world, have for years
struggled to lend to man's habiliment, so tomb
like and so sad, gay lines of form and bright
. 1 touches of color that would convey the notion
of joyousness, whatever the gloom within.
, 1 True philanthropists, most excellent Sa
maritans, wisest of physicians those tailors are
aMArlinf av Tftrilnyi'a .
Yet if we will glance through the historv
nankind a subiect on whinn - . .
of mankind a subject on which Carlyle is one
or tne toremost autnoriuesit would appear
that the doctors are , right that the 1 tailors,
when given the full sway they finally abdicated
when the " famous Stoltz, the great tailor who
lived early in the-- last, century, went down to
oblivion, were humanity's best friends and most
health-evoking nurses. . ;', - ; ; -In
other words, the periods when men wore
gay rauuent were "the periods during; which mel
ancholy.was least known. Mv j - ;
11 ever tnere was an epocn wnena power
ful nation was on its way, to the dogs, and if
ever thpre ' was a ; time wheQ the muck-rakers
cried out the harsh alarm of decadence and .
near-misery,' it was the period when Kome was
4 the ' oregon Sunday ;jouiwAi
c.
ljQ;
V v
ill J:
IRIw felll I'll
pasting into the empire of the Caesars, with all
the true greatness of that greatest of republics
fleeting, like a xniiiig6 that had never' ben TeaL
Ruin was inevitable.7 and the more sober
mmded descried it -afar. -Yet the most sober
ung to the graceful brilliancy of the classic
garb, reioicinar in the beautv of tbAir Whaa
; and lending to victorious Borne the high spirits
and the martial -vini which made an empire so
vast that centuries vof rotting decay were re- I
quired to crumble it in ruins, v .'
He may have been a very stupid biped,' ac
uuTiv- 6 1 of sour-visaged Car- :
v,..u icoaier oi ancienx jttome, who, in his
j '""'"lor passea irom Danquet to Banquet
, ii 5"fticto;-the feasts provided by 1
various hofits.' TTa nnn1 v: .'it a
ded by
lU with
various hosts:
him; and his handsome costumes,-
"uw,'u ma nerve au wun 7
edly the outwsH iJ t..
and nervous vumi
3 - .wmra yA liis mwara
. .., A thousand years after ' only V her seven'
hills remained to world-devouriasr Borne, the
ii
; - .- I 'A l i. s.LJ
J? J-r , . i . VVJT- -7? O rr . II 1
story of unquailing nerves helped by soul-cheering
garments was repeated throughout Italy.
The wildest anarchy of internecine strife,
with murder .ruling supreme and with decimat
ing famine succeeded by disastrous plague - in
the fourteenth, century, was followed by the
emergence of, some semblance of social order.
With 4he daring and - energetic spirit that
has . been the admiration of subsequent ages,
and with the jocund humor of the "Decameron,"
which, had already become a classic, the power-
ful cities of Italy assumed their grandeurs.
Venice, seizing upon Verona and Padua,
reached out to the shores of the Euxine and
showed the world en object lesson in commerce,
naval prowess gay optimism andffine dressing.
There 13 no more gallant figure in the pie-
torial history of man than that f any young
Venetian of the fifteenth century, as ready for a
fight as for ft frolic. And fls keen in trad6 fts m$
own harp sword. - And he was conspicuous in.
sartorial history for hia gay raiment. . ' v :
. Pass another century beyond, and cross the
mountains into France. . The nation,' lanced and
bled again in the Huguenot wars, its sparse
.... . ?.l .t-l-J' ' A
the reign of Henri IV of "good" King Henri,
w T,MABt of atatesmen dismiised as a kinir
crasBea still nourisnea wim Diooa, comes jutg
and it comes ' like a - man whose. veins have
been lanced for fever weak, drained, stagger
in? in its exhaustion,
w.a :a ii j.V i -t 1
hues and all the jocund variety of cut in cos-
.r. . . . . . .
tume whicn nopeiumess can contrive ana loom
""y'
Across the channel, in England, a similar .
brilliant, astonishing scene is being enacted.
Here is a people chronically at, war . with
the world about them because they are chronic-
- ' ' -. i I '1 i If- M
allygmn in marriage and chronically rearing
families too numerous for the narrow confines
of their native land. ; , '
Yet in the midst of their foreign conflicts
they find ample oppprtunity for civil and reli
gious war, until no man's life is safe, while, the
shirt on bis back is protected only by the strong
arm that guards it. A
And no more merry -gentlemen, in no hand
somer clothes, ever laughed at a - comedy, of
Messire Shakespeare than did those gay blades,
who enjoyed the prerogative of chairs upon the
stage and applauded elegantly a poet's politic
compliments to the beautyof an old and red- .
headed queen, whose temper; jpas only too ready
to be vixenish. .
' The reign of Elizabeth-was England's most
daring; and most jovial epoch,! and so .far as
the attire of mere man could make it the most
picturesque. ; Another lesson. : :
- Who can estimate "the ' importance' to
France, later, of the , high heels, with which
Louis XTV, the little . "Grande ' Monarque,"
sought to elevate himself in the eyes of his sub
jects! ' Discriminating history, nowadays, does
not quite- accord to his -talents the tribute of
"Sun of the Universe," with which contempo
rary adulators eulogized him. --
' But. history can never gainsay his inimita
ble genius for personal adornment; and not un
til some defender of duds, as trenchant as Car
lyle, Bhall arise, will oblivious history make ac
count of all that his radiant gewgaws meant to
France, not only in prestige abroad, but in con-
. fidence and practical accomplishment at home.
.-. . The fripperies and frivolities of dress were
never more considered; 'the -unheeding -blith.e-
' ness, that assures a man of success in his envi
ronment, peU ner rjro high, and the terrors
of national bankruptcy, the horrors of, national
Tuin, were "never more imminent or more appa
rent. The revolution, with its gaping guillotine
and its head-hunting pikes, was at tho turn of
the way, waiting.
-.But ' during the "preceding years all had
been gay.' lien wore gay clothes---was' that the
reasonl " - h ;. -'v-iy .' v'
" And the French "Revolution, which marked
for all -the ; w.orld the beginningrof . the-end of
that heedless .health, which is -the antithesis of
our modem melancholia, marked, too, the ad
vent of-more somber raiment. . V-
It could not quite eliminate the innate joy
of man -in frill- pf lace1 and ' grace of flowing
garment. Event the appalling memories .of its
ravaging failed to . leava suicided - France de
nuded of gayety, in its' street attire, early in the
nineteenth century. '
, But humanity's robust jocundity of nerves
;and Bpirit; had -received; its-death blow. The ;
world was, ) on Jts' self -centered, introspective,
melancholy ;' way toward 'severe,, harsb . cut :. of
clothes, toward dulL-sad bues of' fabrics, and
toward incessant worry of mind and unceasing
depression of soul.-' ... , v. .
'.. Our melancholy and our ."nerves," our too
, earnest and too anxious fashion of living, seem -to
date back, approximately, to the time when
the fashion of our clothes went into mournful
;; black, and left , the eye empty of cheerfulness
- and - the snirit of emntv eher. ' - "
v'rjR
: ''r4 '.'
- :0mB H
' -S '' . . .
i "!
... ImI ilii I ... 1 1 v i :
V- - - ' ' U(
.' O The poor apology for an American exqui
J site, ? who, puffed the . pensive cigar, so .bitterly .,
- denounced by, shocked 'Tom Moore," is a poor
apology stilj, with hia street garb- for 1908 an
exact replica of his promenading suit for' 1834 '
7nd with . the immortal soul "of him fortified
..in solitary comfort that,; when he is too miser f;
able to promenade, he ' at least can betake him-
self to a , sanitarium.- - ' '' ? ' A -V -. ; -
p I . there any hope that some time, some v
how we shall cure ourselves by means of the " 1
- bright costumes and the high spirits of, say, .
the. gallants who, as Elizabeth's merry gentle
: men, let nothing them dismay! ;
i
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