Book 1 - Chapter 7. London And Evening Dress

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_ CHAPTER VII. London and Evening Dress

Confession must now be made on a personal matter of capital importance. Up to my thirty-ninth year I had never worn a swallow-tail evening coat, and the question of conforming to a growing sartorial custom was becoming, each day, of more acute concern to my friends as well as to myself.

My first realization of the differences which the lack of evening dress can make in a man's career, came upon me clearly during the social stir of the Columbian Exposition, for throughout my ten years' stay in Boston I had accepted (with serene unconsciousness of the incongruity of my action) the paradoxical theory that a "Prince Albert frock coat" was the proper holiday or ceremonial garment of an American democrat. The claw-hammer suit was to me, as to my fellow artist, "the livery of privilege" worn only by monopolistic brigands and the poor parasites who fawned upon and served them, whereas the double-breasted black coat, royal, as its name denoted, was associated in my mind with judges, professors, senators and doctors of divinity.

It was, moreover, a dignified and logical garment. It clothed with equal charity a man's stomach and his stern. Generous of its skirts, which went far to conceal wrinkled trousers, it could be worn with a light tie at a formal dinner or with a dark tie at a studio tea, and was equally appropriate at a funeral or a wedding. For all these several reasons it remained the uniform of professional men throughout the Middle Border. From my earliest childhood it had been my ideal of manly elegance. Even in New York I had kept pretty close to the social level where it was still accepted.

The World's Fair in '93, however, had not only brought to Chicago many of the discriminating social customs of the East, but also many distinguished guests from the old world to whom dress was a formal, almost sacred routine. To meet these noble aliens, we, the artists and writers of the city, were occasionally invited; and the question "Shall we conform" became ever more pressing in its demand for final settlement. One by one my fellows had deserted from the ranks and were reported as rubbing shoulders with plutocrats in their great dining-rooms or escorting ladies into gilded reception parlors, wearing garments which had no relationship to learning, or art, or law, as I had been taught to believe. Lorado Taft, Oliver Dennett Grover, and even Henry Fuller had gone over to the shining majority, leaving me almost alone in stubborn support of the cylindrical coat.

To surrender was made very difficult for me by Eugene Field, who had publicly celebrated me as "the sturdy opponent of the swallow-tail suit," and yet he himself,--though still outwardly faithful--had been heard to say, "I may be forced to wear the damned thing _yet_."

In all this I felt the wind of social change. That I stood at the parting of the ways was plain to me. To continue on my present line of march would be to have as exemplars Walt Whitman, Joaquin Miller, John Burroughs and other illustrious non-conformists to whom long beards, easy collars, and short coats were natural and becoming. To take the other road was to follow Lowell and Stedman and Howells. To shorten my beard--or remove it altogether,--to wear a standing collar, and attached cuffs--to abandon my western wide-rimmed hat--these and many other "reforms" were involved in my decision. Do you wonder that I hesitated?

That I was being left out of many delightful dinners and receptions had been painfully evident to me for several years, but the consideration which had most weight with me, at this time, was expressed by one of my friends who bluntly declared that all the desirable young women of my acquaintance not only adored men in evening dress but ridiculed those of us who went about at all hours of the day and night in "solemn, shiny, black frocks." I perceived that unless I paid a little more attention to tailors and barbers and haberdashers my chances for bringing a new daughter to my mother were dishearteningly remote. Secretly alarmed and meditating a shameful surrender, I was held in check by the thought of the highly involved system of buttons, ties, gloves, hats, and shoes with which I would be called upon to wrestle.

Zangwill, to whom I confided my perplexity, bluntly advised me to conform. "In truth," said he, "the steel pen suit is the most democratic of garments. It renders the poor author indistinguishable from the millionaire."

As usual I referred the problem to Howells. After explaining that I had in mind a plan to visit England I said, "Every one but John Burroughs says I must get into the swallow-tail coat; and I will confess that even here in New York I am often embarrassed by finding myself the only man in a frock suit at a dinner."

Howells smiled and with delightful humor and that precision of phrase which made him my joy and my despair, answered, "My dear fellow, why don't you make your proposed visit to England, buy your evening suit there and on your return to Chicago plead the inexorability of English social usages?"

He had pointed the way out. "By George, I'll do just that," I declared, vastly elated.

In this account of my hesitations I am _still_ the historian. In stating my case I am stating the perplexities of thousands of my fellow citizens of the Middle Border. It has its humorous phases--this reversal of social habit in me, but it also has wide significance. My surrender was coincident with similar changes of thought in millions of other young men throughout the West. It was but another indication that the customs of the Border were fading to a memory, and that Western society, which had long been dominated by the stately figures of the minister and the judge, was on its way to adopt the manners and customs of the openly-derided but secretly admired "four hundred."

Having decided on my sailing date I asked Howells for a few letters of introduction to English authors.

He surprised me by saying, "I have very few acquaintances in England but I will do what I can for you."

At the moment of embarkation I disappointed myself by remaining quite calm. Even when the great ship began to heave and snort and slide away from the wharf I experienced no thrill--it was not till an hour or two later, as I stood on the forward deck, watching the sun go down over the tumbling spread of water, which had something of the majesty I had known in the prairies, that I became exalted. The vast expanse seemed strangely like an appalling desert and lifting my eyes to the cloudy horizon line I could almost imagine myself back on the rocks of Walpi overlooking the Navajo reservation.

In a letter to my mother I gave the story of my trip. "Feeling a bit queer along about nine o'clock I went to my state room.--When I came on deck the next time, my eyes rested upon the green hills of Ireland!--I am certain the ship's restaurant realized the highest possible profit in my case for I remember but two meals, one as we were leaving Sandy Hook, the other as we signaled Queenstown. It may be that I imbibed a bowl of soup in the interim,--I certainly swallowed a great many doses of several kinds of medicine. The ship's doctor declared me to be the worst sailor he had even known in all his thirty years' experience,--so much of distinction I may definitely claim."

In the dark hours of that interminable week, I went over my trail into the Skeena Valley during the previous May, with retrospective delight. In contrast to these endless days of lonely misery in my ship bed those weeks of rain and mud and mosquitoes became a joyous outing. So far from giving any thought to problems of dress or social intercourse I was only interested in reaching land--any land.

"In two minutes after I landed at Liverpool I was perfectly well," I wrote to my mother. "The touch of solid earth under my feet instantly restored my sanity. My desire to live returned. In an hour I was aboard one of the quaint little coaches of the Midland Express and on my way to London.

"Lush meadows, flecked with fat red cattle feeding beside slow streams; broad lawns rising to wooded hills, on which many-towered gray buildings rose; sudden thick-walled towns; factories, winding streams, noble trees, and finally a yellow mist and London!

"I am at a small inn, near the Terminal Hotel. I ate my dinner last night surrounded by English people. With brain still pulsing with the motion of the sea, I went to my bed, rejoicing to feel around me the solid stone walls of this small but ancient hotel."

After a long walk in search of my publishers I was repaid by finding several letters awaiting me, and among them was one from Zangwill, who wrote, "Come at once to my house. I have a message for you."

His address was almost as quaint in my ear as that of Sir Walter Besant, which was Frognals End--or something like it, but I found it at last on the way to 'Ampstead 'Eath. The house was a modest one but his study was made cheery by a real fire of "coals," and many books.

He greeted me heartily and said, "I have an invitation for you to the Authors' Society Dinner which comes next week. It will be what you would call 'a big round-up' and you can't afford to miss it. You must go at once and order that evening suit."

The idea of the dinner allured me but I shuffled, "Can't I go as I am?"

"Certainly not. It is a full-dress affair."

I argued, "But George Bernard Shaw is reported to be without the dress suit."

"Yes," admitted Zangwill, "Shaw goes everywhere in tweeds, but then he is Shaw, and can afford to do as he pleases. You will not see him at this dinner. He seldom goes to such functions."

With a shudder I plunged. "I'll do it! If I must surrender, let it be on a grand occasion like this. I am in your hands."

Zangwill was highly amused. "We will go at once. That suit must be ready for the dinner which comes on Thursday. There's not a moment to spare. The cow-boy must be tamed."

My hesitation may seem comical to my reader as it did to Zangwill, but I really stood in deep dread of the change. The thought of bulging shirt fronts, standing collars, varnished shoes and white ties appalled me. With especial hatred and timidity I approached the cylindrical hat, which was so wide a departure from my sombrero.--Nevertheless decision had been taken out of my hands! With wry face I followed my guide.

In most unholy glee Zangwill stood looking on whilst I was being measured. "This is the beginning of your moral debacle," said he. "What will they say of you in Wisconsin, when they hear of your appearance at an English dinner wearing 'the livery of the oppressor'?"

I made no reply to these questions, but I felt like the traitor he reported me to be.

However, being in so far I decided to go clean through. I bought a white tie, some high collars, two pairs of gloves and a folding opera hat. I could not bring myself to the point of wearing a high hat in the day time (that was almost too much of a change from my broad brim), although my Prince Albert Frock, which I wore morning, noon, and night, was in conformity with English custom. Even the clerks were so attired.

Meanwhile, Zangwill's study was the only warm place in London--so far as I knew. His glowing fire of hard coal was a powerful lure, and I was often there, reacting to the warmth of his rug like a chilled insect. On his hearth I thawed into something like good humor, and with his knowledge of American steam heat he was fitted to understand my vocal delight.

From my Strand hotel I set out each morning, riding about the city on the tops of buses and in this way soon got "the lay of the land." I was able to find Piccadilly Circus, Trafalgar Square, the Houses of Parliament, and a few other landmarks of this character. I spent a week or more, roaming about the old city, searching out, as most Americans do, the literary, the historic. I wanted to see the Tower, "The Cheshire Cheese," and the Law Courts of the Temple. The modern London, which was almost as ugly as Chicago, did not interest me at all.

Between "try-ons" of the new suit I began to meet the men I was most interested in. I lunched with James Barrie and called upon Bret Harte, Sir Walter Besant and Thomas Hardy. Bernard Shaw wrote asking me to Hindhead for a week-end, and Conan Doyle invited me to see a cricket match with him--but all these events were subordinate to the authors' dinner and the accursed suit in which I was about to lose my identity. "My shirt will 'buckle,' my shoes will hurt my feet, my tie will slip up over my collar--I shall take cold in my chest----" (As a hardened diner-out I look back with wonder and a certain incredulity on that uneasy week.)

These were a few of the fears I entertained, but on the fateful night--an hour before the time to start out, I assumed the whole "outfit" and viewed myself as best I could in my half-length mirror and was gratified to note that I resembled almost any other brown-bearded man of forty. I couldn't see my feet and legs in the glass, but my patent leather shoes were illustrious. I began to think I might pull through without accident.

Zangwill with a mischievous grin on his face, met me at the door of the hotel at seven, and conducted me to the reception hall which was already filled with a throng of most distinguished guests running from Sir Walter Besant, the president of the Authors' Society, to Lord Rosebery, who was to be one of the speakers. Zangwill, who seemed to be known of everybody, kept me in hand, introducing me to many of the writers, and kind Sir Walter said, "As an American over-seas member your seat is at the speakers' table"--an honor which I accepted with a swift realization that it was made possible by the new coat and vest I presented to the world.

Zangwill parted with me, smilingly. "I am but one of lower orders," said he, "but I shall have an eye to you during dinner."

My left-hand neighbor at the table was a short, gray, gloomy individual whose name I failed to catch, but the man on my right was Henry Norman, of the _London Chronicle_, and after we had established friendly relations I leaned to him and whispered, "Who is the self-absorbed, gloomy chieftain on my left?"

"That," said he, "is Henry M. Stanley."

"What!" I exclaimed, "not Henry M. Stanley of Africa?"

"Yes, Stanley of Uganda."

It seemed a pity to sit in silence beside this great explorer, who had been one of my boyish heroes, and I decided to break the ice of his reserve in some way. Turning to him suddenly I asked, "Sir Henry, how do you pronounce the name of that poisonous African fly--is it Teetsie or Tettsie?"

He brightened up at once. I was not so great a bore as he feared. After he had given me a great deal of information about this fly, and the sleeping sickness, I asked him what he thought of the future of the continent, to which he responded with growing geniality. We were off!

After a proper interval I volunteered some valuable data concerning the mosquitoes and flies I had encountered on my recent trip into the wilderness of British Columbia. He became interested in me. "Oh! You've been to the Klondike!"

This quite broke down his wall. Thereafter he listened respectfully to all that I could tell him of the black flies, the huge caribou flies, the orange-colored flies, and the mosquitoes who worked in two shifts (the little gray ones in hot sunlight, the big black ones at night), and by the time the speaking began we were on the friendliest terms. "What a bore these orators are!" I said, and in this judgment he instantly agreed.

Sitting there in the faces of hundreds of English authors, I achieved a peaceful satisfaction with my outfit. A sense of being entirely inconspicuous, a realization that I was committed to convention, produced in me an air of perfect ease. By conforming I had become as much a part of the scene as Sir Walter or the waiter who shifted my plates and filled my glass. "Zangwill is right," I said, "the clawhammer coat is in truth the most democratic of garments."

It pleased me also to dwell upon the fact that the moment of my capitulation had been made glorious by a meeting with Stanley and Hardy and Barrie, and that the dinner which marked this most important change in lifelong habits of dress was appropriately notable. That several hundred of the best known men and women of England had witnessed my fall softened the shock, and when--on the way out--Zangwill nudged my elbow and said, "Cow-boy, you wore 'em to the manner born," I smiled in lofty disregard of future comment. I faced Chicago and New York with serene and confident composure.

Although I carried this suit with me to Bernard Shaw's (on a week-end visit), I was not called upon to wear it, for he met me in snuff-colored knickerbockers and did not change to any other suit during my stay. Sunday dinner at Conan Doyle's was a midday meal, and Barrie and Hardy and other of my literary friends I met at teas or luncheons. I took my newly-acquired uniform to Paris but as my meetings with my French friends were either teas or lunches, it so happened that--eager as I was to display it I did not put this suit on till after I reached home. My first appearance in it was in the nature of a masquerade, my second was by way of a joke to please my mother.

Knowing that she had never seen a man in evening dress I arrayed myself, one night, as if for a banquet, and suddenly descended upon her with intent to surprise and amuse her. I surprised her but I did not make her laugh in the way I had expected. On the contrary she surveyed me with a look of pride and then quietly remarked, "I like you in it. I wouldn't mind if you dressed that way every day."

This finished my opposition to the swallow-tail coat. If my mother, the daughter of a pioneer, a woman of the farm, accepted it as something appropriate to her son, its ultimate acceptance by all America was inevitable. Thereafter I lay in wait for an opportunity to display myself in all my London finery.

* * * * *

Two months later as I was mounting the central staircase of the Chicago Art Institute, on my way to the Annual Reception, I met two of my fellow republicans in Prince Albert Frock suits. At sight of me they started with surprise--surprise and sorrow--exclaiming, "Look at Hamlin Garland!" Assuming an expression of patrician ease, I replied, "Oh, yes, I have conformed. In London one _must_ conform, you know.--The English are quite inexorable in all matters of dress, you understand."

Howells, when I saw him next, smilingly listened to my tale and heartily approved of my action, but Burroughs regarded it as a weak surrender. "A silk hat and steel-pen coat on a Whitman Democrat," he said, "seems like a make-believe," which, in a sense, it was. _

Read next: Book 1: Chapter 8. The Choice Of The New Daughter

Read previous: Book 1: Chapter 6. The Return Of The Artist

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