of any company of civilized men, which belonged to the most
respected class? When Madam Pfeiffer, in her adventurous travels round
the world, from east to west, had got so near home as Asiatic Russia,
she says that she felt the necessity of wearing other than a travelling
dress, when she went to meet the authorities, for she “was now in a
civilized country, where —— — people are judged of by their clothes.”
Even in our democratic New England towns the accidental possession of
wealth, and its manifestation in dress and equipage alone, obtain for
the possessor almost universal respect. But they yield such respect,
numerous as they are, are so far heathen, and need to have a missionary
sent to them. Beside, clothes introduced sewing, a kind of work which
you may call endless; a woman’s dress, at least, is never done.
A man who has at length found something to do will not need to get a
new suit to do it in; for him the old will do, that has lain dusty in
the garret for an indeterminate period. Old shoes will serve a hero
longer than they have served his valet,—if a hero ever has a
valet,—bare feet are older than shoes, and he can make them do. Only
they who go to soirées and legislative halls must have new coats, coats
to change as often as the man changes in them. But if my jacket and
trousers, my hat and shoes, are fit to worship God in, they will do;
will they not? Who ever saw his old clothes,—his old coat, actually
worn out, resolved into its primitive elements, so that it was not a
deed of charity to bestow it on some poor boy, by him perchance to be
bestowed on some poorer still, or shall we say richer, who could do
with less? I say, beware of all enterprises that require new clothes,
and not rather a new wearer of clothes. If there is not a new man, how
can the new clothes be made to fit? If you have any enterprise before
you, try it in your old clothes. All men want, not something to _do
with_, but something to _do_, or rather something to _be_. Perhaps we
should never procure a new suit, however ragged or dirty the old, until
we have so conducted, so enterprised or sailed in some way, that we
feel like new men in the old, and that to retain it would be like
keeping new wine in old bottles. Our moulting season, like that of the
fowls, must be a crisis in our lives. The loon retires to solitary
ponds to spend it. Thus also the snake casts its slough, and the
caterpillar its wormy coat, by an internal industry and expansion; for
clothes are but our outmost cuticle and mortal coil. Otherwise we shall
be found sailing under false colors, and be inevitably cashiered at
last by our own opinion, as well as that of mankind.
We don garment after garment, as if we grew like exogenous plants by
addition without. Our outside and often thin and fanciful clothes are
our epidermis, or false skin, which partakes not of our life, and may
be stripped off here and there without fatal injury; our thicker
garments, constantly worn, are our cellular integument, or cortex; but
our shirts are our liber or true bark, which cannot be removed without
girdling and so destroying the man. I believe that all races at some
seasons wear something equivalent to the shirt. It is desirable that a
man be clad so simply that he can lay his hands on himself in the dark,
and that he live in all respects so compactly and preparedly, that, if
an enemy take the town, he can, like the old philosopher, walk out the
gate empty-handed without anxiety. While one thick garment is, for most
purposes, as good as three thin ones, and cheap clothing can be
obtained at prices really to suit customers; while a thick coat can be
bought for five dollars, which will last as many years, thick
pantaloons for two dollars, cowhide boots for a dollar and a half a
pair, a summer hat for a quarter of a dollar, and a winter cap for
sixty-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 suit, of _his own
earning_, there will not be found wise men to do him reverence?
When I ask for a garment of a particular form, my tailoress tells me
gravely, “They do not make them so now,” not emphasizing the “They” at
all, as if she quoted an authority as impersonal as the Fates, and I
find it difficult to get made what I want, simply because she cannot
believe that I mean what I say, that I am so rash. When I hear this
oracular sentence, I am for a moment absorbed in thought, emphasizing
to myself each word separately that I may come at the meaning of it,
that I may find out by what degree of consanguinity _They_ are related
to _me_, and what authority they may have in an affair which affects me
so nearly; and, finally, I am inclined to answer her with equal
mystery, and without any more emphasis of the “they,”—“It is true, they
did not make them so recently, but they do now.” Of what use this
measuring
