III
January, 1913.
I HAD meant, my dear Caroline, to write to you upon the interesting subject of marriage in this letter, but before I can commence upon that, I must speak of something else, and you must promise me not to be offended at what I am going to say, since we both desire the same end – your success and welfare. The fact is, your picture, which you tell me was drawn by a friend, has just reached me. You say it is more like you than the only photograph I possess of you, taken when you were fifteen; and it is because of your assuring me of this that I cannot remain silent – for, Caroline child, I must confess it shocks and disconcerts me, and makes me feel that I must be very frank with you, if you are ever going to be able to attain that position which we both hope that you may.
Even if the drawing was perhaps done some months ago, and you have altered your style of hair-dressing since then – still, that you were ever able to have looked like that – you in Paris! – proves that your observation and taste are not yet sufficiently cultivated to make you anything of a success when you come out in May. Thus I must speak plainly and at once.
Now, let us pretend that the little girl I see before me is not you at all, but some abstract person; and let us dissect her bit by bit: her type, her style, her suitability – or want of it – her attitude and the general effect she produces. And then let me suggest the remedies and alterations which can improve her.
Firstly, her type, Caroline, child, is not distinguished. She has a large-eyed, dear little profile, which may be very pretty as a full face, and which, framed in appropriately done hair, could succeed in being picturesque, but in itself, with its little snub features, is insignificant. She has rather a big head, and thick, bushy dark hair – which I grieve to observe she has done in a large bun of sausage curls! – a fashion which was never in vogue really among ladies, and for over two or three years has been relegated to the pates of “roof-garden” waitresses and third-class shop assistants. And further to provoke my ire, although this girl in the picture is drawn in an ordinary morning skirt and boots, she wears a light-colored ribbon in her hair! Caroline, dearest, where could her eyes and observation and sense of the fitness of things have been – with the example of the exquisite Parisiennes in front of her – to be able to perpetrate these incongruities! But there is more to come! Her skirt is a rough, useful serge skirt, and her boots, although the heels are too high, are not a bad shape – but with this she has put on one of those cheap, impossible blouses, cut all in one piece – “kimono,” I believe they are called – with short sleeves and an unmeaning black bow tacked to the cuff! Now, a shirt should be a workmanlike thing, as neat as a man’s, and with long sleeves finished by real shirt-cuffs with links. It can be composed of silk, flannel, or linen, but if it is a shirt – that is, a garment for the morning, and to be worn with a rough serge or tweed winter suit – it should have no meaningless fripperies about it. If you want trimmed-up things, have a regular blouse, and then wear it with an afternoon costume. Short-sleeved blouses should only be indulged in in the summer, and when they are made of the finest material. And even then, if the wearer has what the little girl in this picture seems to have – thick wrists and rather big hands – it is wiser to avoid them altogether!
Now that I have torn her garments and hair-dressing to pieces, Caroline! – I must scold about her attitude. She is doing two of the most ungraceful things: putting her arm akimbo and crossing her legs! You may say every girl does them – which may be true, but that is no proof that they are pretty or desirable habits! To digress a moment – I went to a party the other night, a musical party where the guests were obliged to sit still round the room quietly; and I counted no less than thirteen of the younger women with their legs crossed, which in some cases, on account of these very narrow skirts we are all wearing, caused the sights to be perfectly grotesque. There is something so cheap about exposing one’s ankles, to say nothing of calf, and almost the knee, to any casual observer – don’t you think so?
But now to return to the girl in the picture! We have dissected the details and got to her style, and the effect she produces. Her style, I must frankly say, is common, Caroline, and the effect she produces is unprepossessing, because it is incongruous; and incongruity in all simple, morning, utility clothes is only another word for bad taste. I could write pages and pages about the vagaries of fashion, and how what looks chic one year may be vulgar the next, but we have not time or space for that. There are only these general rules always to be observed: for the morning or the street, the most distinguished-looking woman or girl is she who is garbed the most simply and the most neatly, with tidy hair and every garment plainly showing its purpose and meaning. It is in this that the Americans you can see any morning walking on Fifth Avenue excel. But, alas! English maidens nearly always spoil the picture by some unnecessary auxiliary touch or other.
Now, Caroline, be just, and, looking at the drawing with an unprejudiced eye, you will admit that what I have said, though severe, is true.
With a type like yours you cannot be too particular to be on the side of refinement and good taste, and my first advice is: Brush all that thick bush of hair so that it shines, then part it and take the sides rather farther back, so that they do not touch your eyebrows (I like the tiny curl by the ear which has escaped – leave that!); then twist all those dreadful sausages into the simplest twist, so as to make your head as small as possible – which, apart from being the present fashion, is a pretty balance. Never wear a light ribbon in the day-time, although it often looks very becoming at night.
In choosing an article of dress you must remember the vital matter of its suitability; suitability generally, suitability for the occasions you mean to wear it on, its suitability to yourself and your type. If you cultivate these points and use your eyes and observation to see what is the prettiest note in passing fashion, you can counteract the rather commonplace, though pretty, appearance Nature has endowed you with, and turn it into a quaint, picturesque little individuality.
Never buy things that you do not actually want just because they are cheap. Cheap things nearly always have disadvantages, or they would not be cheap. Have few clothes and good ones. Take care of them, and do not ruthlessly crush and rumple them when you have them on, even though you have a good maid to repair your ravages afterwards. I know you will not have to bother about money, but I say all this because I see by the blouse you are wearing in your picture that you have a leaning toward these rubbishy things. Be extremely particular about your foot-covering, too, Caroline. You look as though you had nice feet. Never buy any of the eccentric fashions that you see in every shop window, and on the feet of every little person trotting in the street. Go to one good bootmaker and let him make a study of your foot, and then have the simplest, neatest, and daintiest things made for you. You see, I am writing to one who has ample money for whatever is required, so I am giving her the best advice, because I fear her own taste is not sound – and she is young enough to learn! If you were a poor girl, Caroline, coming out in society on the narrowest means, I would send you all sorts of hints how to arrange and manage to look sweet and lovely upon a very small sum. It is not that all cheap things are ugly, but, with a faulty taste and a large allowance, it is wiser for our end that you should go only to the best shops. I implore you, Caroline, if the instinct of personal distinction does not come naturally to you, to cultivate it by observation. Every time you go out observe what women look the nicest, and what makes them achieve this effect. Examine your own little face, with its blue eyes and black hair, and try to imagine which of the styles would suit you best and make you look the least ordinary.
You have probably never thought of these things, and have just drifted on with other school-girls until you present the mass of incongruities your friend depicted in the drawing of you. I am extremely grateful that you have sent me this sketch now, when it is not too late, and we have still some months before us to alter matters. And your letter in answer to my first one shows me that you have a charming nature, and will understand this which I now write and take it as it is meant. Exaggeration is one of youth’s faults, and easily corrected and trained.
And now we can begin about marriage. But, as the post is going, I shall not be able to say all that I want to in this letter.
Marriage is the aim and end of all sensible girls, because it is the meaning of life. No single existence can be complete, however full of interests it may be. It is unfinished, and its pleasures at best are but pis-allers. You agree with me on this point, so we need not argue. But marriage in this country is for life, unless it is broken by divorce, which, no matter how the law may be simplified, and altered presently, must always remain as a stain upon a woman and a thing to be faced only in the last extremity. So, Caroline dear, when you marry you must realize that it is for life, and it is therefore a very serious step, and not to be taken lightly. The rushing into unions without sufficient thought is the main cause of much of the modern unhappiness. How can you expect to spend peaceful, blissful years with a man whom you have taken casually just because you liked chaffing with him and dancing with him, or playing golf? Think of the hours you must spend with him when these things will be impossible, and if you have no other tastes in common you will find yourself terribly bored. In one of my books I once wrote this maxim: “It is better to marry the life you like, because after a while the man does not matter!” It was a very cynical sentence, but unfortunately true. It is only in the rarest cases that “after a while” either individual really matters to the other. They have at best become habits; they are friendly and jolly, and if “the life” is what they both like all rubs along smoothly enough. But love – that exquisite essence which turned the world into Paradise – is a thing flown away.
Now, Caroline, I want yours to be one of those rare cases where love endures for a long time, and even when it alters into friendship continues in perfect sympathy.
So, when you feel yourself becoming attracted by a young man, pull yourself together in time and ask yourself, if the affair goes on, would you really like him for a husband?
Think what it would be to be with him always, at the interminable meals, for years and years, through all the tedious duties which must come with responsibility. Ask yourself if his tastes suit yours, if his bent of mind is the same, if you will be likely to agree upon general points of view. And, if you are obliged honestly to answer these questions in the negative, then have the strength of mind to crush whatever attraction is beginning to spring in your heart. Once it goes on to passion, no reason is of any use, so it is only in the beginning that judgment can be employed.
You must remember that like draws like with more or less intensity according to the force of characters. I know you are highly educated, Caroline, and if you do not let yourself become priggish you should draw a very nice young man. Then let us suppose you have done so, and marry him. You are then contracting a bargain, and you have to fulfil your half. The modern young woman seems to imagine she has done quite enough by going through the ceremony, and henceforward she is to do exactly what she pleases, and only consider her own pleasure on all occasions. This attitude of mind makes things very hard upon the poor young man, who presently gets bored with her, and, as in these days honor and rigid morality are rather vieux jeu, he soon drifts away to other interests and amusements. And one cannot blame him. It is upon your obligations and behavior, not his, that I wish to write to you at length, Caroline, but in this letter I shall have time only to begin. You must start by understanding that the natures of men and women are totally different. Men are infinitely more simple, and the British education helps them by its drumming into their heads the knowledge of what is or is not “cricket.” Their natural methods are more direct, and they are much easier to deal with. They are fundamentally and unconsciously selfish, because for generations women have been taught to give way to them. You must accept this fact and not storm and rage against it. The only way you can change it in regard to your own personal male belonging is by inspiring in him intense devotion to yourself; but, even so, it is wiser to face it and make the best of it, and not be disillusioned. You are probably selfish also; it is one of the greatest signs of the age, the growing selfishness of women. It is not altogether a bad thing; it is a proof in one way of their increasing individuality; but meanwhile it does not tend toward their happiness. Now, Caroline, I am sure you will agree with me that to aim at happiness is a wiser and more agreeable thing than just to express the growing individuality of your sex!
I must reiterate what I said in my former letters; I am advising you for a first start in all things. Circumstances may arise which may alter possibilities, but, to begin upon, we may as well aim at the best, and not fight windmills; storming that men ought to be different, and that women should not give way, being their superiors in most things!
It will take much longer than your lifetime (and I personally hope, in spite of the wrath I shall excite in stating this, – much longer than many lifetimes) to change the nature of men. So do not let us bother over these abstract points, but accept men as they are, dear, attractive, selfish darlings! with generous hearts and a quite remarkable faculty for playing fair in any game. So you must play fair also, and try to understand the rules and follow them. If the husband you select has a stronger character than you have, and if he is also extremely desirable to other women, the only way you will be able to keep him through all the years to come will be by being invariably sweet, loving, and gentle to him, so that, no matter what tempers and caprices he experiences in his encounters with the many others of your sex who will fling themselves at his head, he will never have a memory but of love and peace at home. Never mind what he does, supposing you really love him and want to keep him, this is the only method to use. It may even seem to bore him at the end of about the first two years, but continue.
If he is young and handsome and attractive he must have his fling, and you should let him have whatever tether he requires, while you influence him to good and beautiful things, and always know and feel certain in your heart that the intense magnetic force of your love and sweetness will inevitably draw him back the moment the outside fascination palls. These preliminary remarks, I dare say, are calculated to provoke the fiercest argument among many girls; but wait, Caroline, until I have finished explaining the reasons and dissecting the aspects, keeping in view our end – common sense and happiness.
You must tell me if these things interest you before next month, when I will write again. Because now I must end this letter.
Your affectionate Godmother,
E. G.