In the dietary of children the two great mistakes are over-feeding and under-feeding; but of the two evils the last is the worst. Repletion is less injurious than inanition; and according to my observation gluttony is the vice of adults rather than of children. If they do exceed, the cause may generally be traced to the fact that they have suffered a long want of the article they revel in. For instance, if at rare intervals candies and sweetmeats are within their reach, they do generally make themselves sick with an over supply of them; but this is but the Nemesis that ever follows unnatural deprivations of any kind.
Nothing is more necessary to a child than sugar. Its love of it is not so much to please its palate as to satisfy an urgent craving of its necessity. Sugar is so important a substance in the chemical changes going on in the body that many other compounds have to be reduced to sugar before they are available as heat-making constituents. In fact the liver is a factory for transforming much of the nutriment we take, in other forms, into sugar.
It may be said, “If sugar is a great heat-maker, so also is fat meat, which most children very much dislike.” The one fact proves the other. Fat meat and sugar are both great heat-producers, but the child craves sugar and dislikes fat because its weak organism can deal with the sugar, but cannot manage the fat. Every mother must have noticed that delicate children turn sick at fat meat and usually crave sweets. Poor little things! they want something to make the vital fire burn more rapidly. Sugar in proper proportions is fuel judiciously added; fat is fuel they have not strength to assimilate, and therefore reject. Of course no mother understands me to say that children should therefore be fed on sugar; but only that they should have a fair and regular proportion of it in some form or other; in which case they would feel no more temptation to exceed in occasional opportunities.
Another dominant desire with growing children is fruit. They will eat fruits, ripe or unripe; a sour apple or a ripe strawberry seems equally acceptable. It is common to attribute summer complaints of all kinds to 221 them, and to carefully limit children in their use. The fact is that all fruits contain a vegetable acid which is a powerful tonic and one peculiarly acceptable to the stomach. Fruits ought to form a part of every child’s food all the year round,—fresh fruits in summer, apples and oranges in winter. But they must be given regularly with the meals, and not between them. They will then fulfil their tonic office in the system, and never under ordinary circumstances do the least harm.
How often have we seen children in mistaken kindness largely restricted to bread and milk, puddings and vegetables; nay, told in answer to their craving looks that “meat was not good for little boys and girls.” Now, consider first why adults eat meat. Is it not to repair the loss we suffer from active work, the exhaustion from mental efforts, and to supply afresh the vital warmth, much of which is lost every day by simple radiation? In all these ways children usually exhaust life quicker than adults. They run where we walk, they jump, they skip, they are seldom still. Their studies are as severe a mental strain to them as our 222 business cares to us. Their bodies are quite as much exposed to loss of heat by radiation as ours—in some cases more so. But children have a most important demand on their vitality which adults have not: they have to grow. Who, therefore, needs strong and nutritious food more than children? They ought to have meat, plenty of it, as much as they desire; and with the meat, bread and vegetables, milk, sweets, and fruits. For variety is another grand condition of healthy food,—no one kind of food (however good) being able to supply all the different elements the body needs for perfect health and fine development.
If children have any urgent desire for some particular diet it would be well for parents to hesitate and investigate before denying them. They have no means of coming to any secret understanding with the child’s stomach; but Nature generally asks pertinaciously for any special necessity, and Nature is never wrong. Neither is it well to limit the quantity any more than the kind of food given to children. Their necessities vary with causes too involved for any parent constantly 223 to keep in view. The state of the weather, the amount of electricity, or moisture in the atmosphere, study, sleep, exercise, the condition of digestion, even the mental temper of the child might differently influence the condition and demands of nearly every meal. No dietary theory that did not consider all these and many more conditions would be reliable. What, then, are we to do? Have more confidence in natural instincts. If children ask “for more,” ten to one they feel more truly than we can reason on this subject.
On general principles it may be assumed children ask as directed by Nature; they desire what she needs and as much as she needs. Of course, all advice must be of a general nature; special limitations are supposed in the power of every thoughtful mother. But the great principle is to remember that energy depends on the amount, not of food, but of nutritive food; for if a pound of one kind of food gives as much nutriment as four pounds of another, surely that is best for children (and adults too) which tries their digestion least.
What the next generation will be depends upon the physical, mental, and moral training of the children of to-day. These children are the to-morrow of society. Are they to be puny and dyspeptic, fretting and worrying through life as through a task? Or, are they to be finely developed, sweetbreathed, clear-eyed, light-spirited mediums for divine aspirations and intellectual and material works?
O mothers! do not despise the humble-looking foundation-stone of life—good health. You have the earliest building up of the body; see that you spare no elements necessary for its perfection. Be liberal; doubt your own theories rather than Nature; trust the child where you are at a loss, just as a lost man throws the reins on his horse’s neck and trusts to something subtler than reason—instinct.
In whatever light the subject of children’s food is regarded, the great principle is we—cannot get power out of nothing. If the child is to have health, energy, intellect, there must be present the necessary physical conditions. These are not the result of accident, but of generous consideration.
A little girl, who made a study of epitaphs, was greatly puzzled to know “where all the bad people were buried.” Perhaps just as great a puzzle to a reflective mind is, What comes of all the promising boys?
We will allow, first, that a great deal of “promise” exists only in the partiality of parents; that a bright, intense childhood is frequently so different from the mechanical routine of adult life that the simple difference strikes the parent as something remarkable, whereas it is, perhaps, only a strong case of contrast between the natural and the artificial. This is proven by the fact that as the boy becomes part and parcel of the every-day world he gradually falls into its ways, adopts its tone, and in no respect attempts to rise above its level.
Fortunately, however, the change is so gradual that parents scarcely perceive when or how they lost their exalted hopes; and by the time that Jack or Will has imbibed a fair amount of knowledge, and settled contentedly down to his desk and high stool, they also are well pleased and inclined to forget that they had ever dreamt the boy might sit upon the bench, or, perhaps, fill with honor the Presidential chair.
Allowing such boys a very respectable minority, and allowing also a large margin for that unfortunate class who
“Wise so young, they say, do ne’er live long,”
there is still good reason for us to ask, What becomes of all the promising boys?
We are inclined to arraign as the first and foremost of deceivers and defrauders in this matter the modern educational art of Cram. It is to education what adulteration is to commerce. It is far worse, for here it is not money that is stolen, it is a parent’s best and highest hopes; it is a boy’s whole future life and its success. For the system rests upon a fallacy, namely, that it is possible for boys 227 of twenty to know everything, from the multiplication-table to metaphysics, from Greek plays to theological dogmas.
To the average boy such intellectual feats are simply impossible; but he is plucky and fertile in expedients; he is neither disposed to be beaten nor able really to overtake his task, so he uses his brains carefully, and makes the greatest possible show on the greatest possible number of subjects.
Perhaps nothing in our present system of education is so demoralizing and unjust as the custom of public examinations. In them interest and vanity play into each other’s hands; genuine acquirement and principle “go to the wall.” The teachers and the boys alike know that they are never true criterions of progress, that they are seldom even fair representations of the actual course of study. Weeks, months are spent in preparations for the deceitful display; even then true merit, which is generally modest by nature, does itself injustice, and vain self-assurance comes off with flying colors.
The Cram teacher scatters seed over a 228 large amount of mental surface, instead of thoroughly cultivating the most promising portions; and he brings before the parents and the public the few ears gleaned on all the acres as samples of crops which he knows never will be gathered. Yet to his own pedantic vanity, or his self-interest, he sacrifices the prime of many a fine boy’s life. Therefore we are disposed to believe that if parents would inexorably refuse to sanction these pretentious public displays, there would be probably a much less accumulation of bare facts, but a far greater cultivation of natural abilities, and a far more thorough development of decided aptitudes.
Mechanical drudgery, instead of intelligent labor, is the inevitable method where cramming a boy, instead of educating him, is the favorite system. No mental faculties, except the memory, receive any discipline, and the knowledge disappears as fast as it was gained. All taste for laborious habits of thought are lost, and if a boy originally possessed a love for learning he is soon disgusted at what his simple nature tells him is pretence and unreal, and judging the true 229 by a false standard he conceives an honest disgust for intellectual labor, and pronounces it all a sham.
Few boys can even mentally go through a course of “cramming” and come out uninjured. The majority of the finest intellects develop tardily, and their superiority is in fact greatly dependent upon the staying powers conferred by physical strength and wisely considered conditions. There are of course exceptions, where an inherited force of genius stamps the boy from the first and defies all systems to crush it. But it is the average boy, and not the exceptional one, that must be considered in all methods of education.
In this matter boys are not to be blamed. They naturally accept the master’s opinions as to the value of his plan; they rather enjoy a neck-and-neck race with each other in superficial acquirements, and the whole tendency of our social life supports the tempting theory. Every one wants to possess without the trouble of acquiring; every one would have a reputation without the labor of earning it. In an age which prides 230 itself upon the speed with which it does everything, which makes a merit of doing whatever is to be done in the shortest and quickest way possible, it is easy to perceive how a certain class of teachers, and parents too, would be willing to believe that the old up-hill road to knowledge might be graded and lined and made available for rapid transit.
But nothing can be more illogical than to apply social rules and conditions to mental ones. The former are constantly changing, the latter obey fixed and immutable laws. There is not, there never has been, there never will be, any short cuts to universal knowledge; and the boy who is made to waste time seeking one will have either to relinquish his object altogether, or else, turning back to the main road, find his early companions who kept to it hopelessly ahead of him. Learning is a plant that grows slowly and whose fruit must be waited for. It is a long time, even after having learned anything, that we know it well.
A great deal has been said lately on the servant-girl question, always from the mistresses’ point of view; and as no ex-parte evidence is conclusive, I offer for the servant-girl side some points that may help to a better understanding of the whole subject.
It is said, on all hands, that servants every year grow more idle, showy, impudent, and independent. The last charge is emphatically true, and it accounts for and includes the others. But then this independence is the necessary result of the world’s progress, in which all classes share. Steam has made it easy for families to travel, who, without cheap locomotion, would never go one hundred miles from home. It has also made it easy for servants to go from city to city. 232 When wages are low and service is plenty in one place, a few dollars will carry them to where they are in request.
Fifty years ago very few servants read, or cared to read. They are now the best patrons of a certain class of newspapers; they see the “Want columns” as well as other people; and they are quite capable of appreciating the lessons they teach and the advantages they offer. The national increase of wealth has also affected the position of servants. People keep more servants than they used to keep; and servants have less work to do. People live better than they used to live, and servants, as well as others, feel the mental uplifting that comes from rich and plentiful food.
But one of the main causes of trouble is that a mistress even yet hires her servant with some ancient ideas about her inferiority. She forgets that servants read novels, and do fancy work, and write lots of letters; and that service can no longer be considered the humble labor of a lower for a superior being. Mistresses must now dismiss from their minds the idea of the old family servant 233 they have learned to meet in novels; they must cease to look upon service as in any way a family tie; they must realize and practically acknowledge the fact that the relation between mistress and servant is now on a purely commercial basis,—the modern servant being a person who takes a certain sum of money for the performance of certain duties. Indeed the condition has undergone just the same change as that which has taken place in the relation between the manufacturer and his artisans, or between the contractor and his carpenters and masons.
It is true enough that servants take the money and do not perform the duties, or else perform them very badly. The manufacturer, the contractor, the merchant, all make the same complaint; for independence and social freedom always step before fitness for these conditions, because the condition is necessary for the results, and the results are not the product of one generation. Surely Americans may bear their domestic grievances without much outcry, since they are altogether the consequences of education and progress, and are the circumstances which 234 make possible much higher and better circumstances.
For just as soon as domestic service is authoritatively and publicly made a commercial bargain, and all other ideas eliminated from it, service will attract a much higher grade of women. The independent, fairly well-read American girl will not sell her labor to women who insist on her giving any part of her personality but the work of her hands. She feels interference in her private affairs to be an impertinence on any employer’s part. She does not wish any mistress to take an interest in her, to advise, to teach, or reprove her. She objects to her employer being even what is called “friendly.” All she asks is to know her duties and her hours, and to have a clear understanding as to her work and its payment. And when service is put upon this basis openly, it will draw to it many who now prefer the harder work, poorer pay, but larger independence, of factories.
Servants are a part of our social system, but our social system is being constantly changed and uplifted, and servants rise 235 with it. I remember a time in England when servants who did not fulfil their year’s contract were subject to legal punishment; when a certain quality of dress was worn by them, and those who over-dressed did so at the expense of their good name; when they seldom moved to any situation beyond walking distance from their birthplace; when, in fact, they were more slaves than servants. Would any good woman wish to restore service to this condition?
On the servant’s part the root of all difficulty is her want of respect for her work; and this, solely because her work has not yet been openly and universally put upon a commercial basis. When domestic service is put on the same plane as mechanical service, when it is looked upon as a mere business bargain, then the servant will not feel it necessary to be insolent and to do her work badly, simply to let her employer know how much she is above it. Much has been done to degrade service by actors, newspapers, and writers of all kinds giving to the domestic servant names of contempt as “flunkies,” “menials,” etc., etc. If such terms were habitually used regarding 236 mechanics, we might learn to regard masons and carpenters with disdain. Yet domestic service is as honorable as mechanical service, and the woman who can cook a good dinner is quite as important to society as the man who makes the table on which it is served.
Yet, whether mistresses will recognize the change or not, service has in a great measure emancipated itself from feudal bonds. Servants have now a social world of their own, of which their mistresses know nothing at all. In it they meet their equals, make their friends, and talk as they desire. Without unions, without speeches, and without striking,—because they can get what they want without striking,—they have raised their wages, shortened their hours, and obtained many privileges. And the natural result is an independence—which for lack of proper expression asserts itself by the impertinence and self-conceit of ignorance—that has won more in tangible rights than in intangible respect.
Mistresses who have memories or traditions are shocked because servants do not acknowledge their superiority, or in any way 237 reverence their “betters.” But reverence for any earthly thing is the most un-American of attitudes. Reverence is out of date and offensively opposed to free inquiry. Parents do not exact it, and preachers do not expect it,—the very title of “Rev.” is now a verbal antiquity. Do we not even put our rulers through a course of hand-shaking in order to divest them of any respect the office might bring? Why, then, expect a virtue from servants which we do not practise in our own stations?
It is said, truly enough, that servants think of nothing but dress. Alas, mistresses are in the same transgression! This is the fault of machinery. When servants wore mob-caps and ginghams, mistresses wore muslins and merinos, and were passing fine with one good silk dress. Machinery has made it possible for mistresses to get lots of dresses, and if servants are now fine and tawdry, it is because there is a general leaning that way. Servants were neat when every one else was neat.
To blame servants for faults we all share is really not reasonable. It must be remembered 238 that women of all classes dress to make themselves attractive, and attractive mainly to the opposite sex. What the young ladies in the parlor do to make themselves beautiful to their lovers, the servants in the kitchen imitate. Both classes of young women are anxious to marry. There is no harm in this desire in either case. With the hopes of the young ladies we do not meddle; why then interfere about nurse and the policeman? service is not an elysium under the most favorable circumstances. No girl gets fond of it, and a desire to be mistress of her own house—however small it may be—is not a very shameful kicking against Providence.
The carrying out of three points, would probably revolutionize the whole condition of service:—
First. The relation should be put upon an absolutely commercial basis; and made as honorable as mechanical, or factory, or store service.
Second. Duties and hours should be clearly defined. There should be no interference in personal matters. There should be no more personal interest expected, or shown, 239 than is the rule between any other employer and employee.
Third. If it were possible to induce yearly engagements, they should be the rule; for when people know they have to put up with each other for twelve months, they are more inclined to be patient and forbearing; they learn to make the best of each other’s ways; and bearing becomes liking, and habit strengthens liking, and so they go on and on, and are pretty well satisfied.
The Anglo-Saxon race is inherently extravagant. The lord and leader of the civilized world, it clothes itself in purple and fine linen, and lives sumptuously every day, as a prerogative of its supremacy.
This trait is a very early one, and the barbaric extravagance of “The Field of the Cloth of Gold” only typified that passion of the race for splendid apparel and accessories which in our day has reached a point of general and prodigal pomp and ostentation.
No other highly civilized nations have this taste for personal parade and luxurious living to the same extent. The French, who enjoy a reputation for all that is pretty and elegant, are really parsimonious, and it is as natural for a Frenchman to hoard his money as it is for a dog to bury his bone, while a Dutchman or a German can 241 grow rich on a salary which keeps an American always scrambling on the verge of bankruptcy.
Some time ago Lord Derby said: “Englishmen are the most extravagant race in the world, or, at least, only surpassed by the Americans.” And the “surpassing” in this direction is so evident to any one familiar with the two countries that it requires no demonstration,—an American household, even in the middle classes, being a model school for throwing away the most money for the least possible returns.
American women have a reputation for lavish expenditure that is world-wide, but they are not more extravagant than American men. If one spends money on beautiful toilets and splendidly dreary entertainments, the other flings it away on the turf, on cards or billiards, or in masculine prodigalities still more objectionable. In most fashionable houses the husband and wife are equally extravagant, and the candle blazes away at both ends.
To foreigners, the most noticeable extravagance of Americans is in the matter of 242 flowers. Winter or summer, women of very modest means must have flowers for their girdle. They will pay fifty cents for a rose or two when half-dollars are by no means plentiful, and it is such a pretty womanly taste that no man has the heart to grumble at it; only, if the women themselves would add up the amount of money spent in this transitory luxury, say during three months, they would be astonished at their own thoughtlessness.
For of all pleasures flower-buying is the most evanescent; before the day is over the fading buds are cast into the refuse cart, and the money might just as well have been cast into the street.
As for the amount spent in floral displays at weddings, funerals, theatres, balls, and dinners, it must be presumed that people who thus waste hundreds of dollars on articles that are useless in a few hours have the hundreds of dollars to throw away, and that they enjoy the pastime of making floral ducks and drakes with their money. But if they do not enjoy it, then why do they not imitate the economy of Beau Brummel, who, 243 when compelled by his debts to make some sacrifice of luxuries, resolved to begin retrenchment by curtailing the rose water for his bath?
Large floral outlays are just as fantastic an extravagance, for though flowers in moderation are beautiful, in excess they are vulgar, and even disagreeable. The Greeks, who made no mistakes about beauty and fitness, contented themselves with a garland and a rose for their wine cup. They would never have danced and feasted and wedded themselves in a charnel-house of dying flowers.
Our dressing and dining is done on the same immense scale. Lucullus might preside at our feasts, and queens envy the jewels and costumes of our women. Perhaps the size of the country and its transcendent possibilities in every direction instinctively incite those who have the means to lavishness of outlay. People who live under bright high skies, and whose horizons are wide and far-reaching, imbibe a largeness of expression which is not satisfied with mere words; and if we look at our extravagance in this way, we may regard it as a national 244 trait, developed from our natural position and advantages.
Of course, it is easy to say that Americans are lavish because, as Dr. Watts puts it, “it is their nature to” be, but the real reason for the overgrown luxury of the last two or three decades is to be found in the rapid increase of the vulgar rich, the very last class worthy of our imitation. Are not the absurd blunders of the poor man who strikes oil a common subject for witticisms and stories?
Profuse display will probably be the only social grace the newly rich can dispense. So, then, if wealth increases more rapidly than culture, it is sure, in the very nature of things, to be squandered ostentatiously; for the men whose minds are in a stunted state, being fit for nothing else, will throw their money away on cards or horses or any other fashionable form of dissipation; and the women in the same mental incompleteness, knowing nothing but how to dress and dance, when they have wealth thrust upon them will be able to find no better use for it than to dress and dance all the more conspicuously.
This senseless love of display, once inaugurated in a city set or in a small town, is apt to take the lead: first, because all the snobs will cater to it; second, because sensible people know that they cannot start a reform movement without making themselves unpopular, and going to a great deal of trouble and expense.
For, however extravagant the machinery of society is, it has the enormous advantage of being there, and few people can afford to live against it. For to do as every one else does, and to go with the stream, is much easier than to set good examples that no one wants to follow. Indeed it takes a tremendous exercise of pluck, thought, trouble, time, and energy to reduce an establishment that has been an extravagant one to a more economical footing.
The justification of private extravagant expenditure is found in the necessity of a class who will have leisure to encourage the intellectual tastes and ambitions of the nation. And this end might be accomplished if only matters could be so arranged that a shower of gold should descend on 246 the right people in the right place at the right time.
But wealth is no more to the worthy than the race is to the strong, and so it often finds outlets for dispersion for which there is no justification, and whose sole object is that sensual life pictured in “Lothair,”—fine houses, great retinues, costly clothing, clubs, yachts, conservatories, etc., etc.,—in fact, an existence without a crumpled rose-leaf, that would make a man a mixture of the sybarite and satyr. Such specimens of humanity may occasionally be found in America, but they are not yet a distinct class, nor are they likely to become one in our pushing, up-and-down, constantly changing society. Indeed, amid the earnest strivings, the intellectual aspirings and the mechanical wonders of steam and electricity which environ us, a semi-monster of the Lothair type would be as incongruous as a faun on the Avenue or a Pagan temple on mid-Broadway.
If we would only take the trouble to examine the facts before our eyes we have constantly in our university towns the proof 247 that high culture and moderation in dress and living go together. Take Cambridge, Mass., for instance; its very best society is singularly unostentatious, and the wives and daughters of its educated dignitaries entertain without extravagance, and look for respect and admiration from some loftier standpoint than their dress trimmings.
This is a question that from the earliest days of Christianity has at times agitated the Church. It was specially dominant in the first centuries, when every divergence from Jewish or Pagan rites was almost an act of faith. Now the Jews, after the death of their relatives, wore sackcloth during their time of mourning, which lasted from seven to forty days. They sat on the ground, and ate their food off the earth; they neither dressed themselves, nor made their beds, nor went into the bath, nor saluted any one. This excess of grief rarely lasted long; then a great feast was made for the surviving friends of the dead; or the bread and meat were placed upon his grave 249 for the benefit of the poor. (Tobit iv. 17; Eccles. xxx. 18; and Baruch vi. 27.)
It was natural for the Christian, with the hope set before him, to oppose this despairing sorrow, and we find Saint Jerome praising those who partially abandoned it; while Cyprian declares he was “ordered by Divine revelation to preach that Christians should not lament their brethren delivered from the world, nor wear any mourning habits for them, seeing that they were gone to put on white raiment, nor give occasion for unbelievers by lamenting those as lost whom we affirm to be with God.”
As the Church lapsed from its simplicity into forms and ceremonies, vestments of all kinds, and for every purpose and occasion, gained importance; and the first serious protestation against mourning garments came from the Quakers. To these spiritual men and women it seemed absurd to wear black garments for those whom they believed had put on everlasting white. The majority of the early Methodists held the same opinion, though in a less positive form. It is remarkable, however, that Christians alone assume 250 the woeful, despairing black garments which seem to denote not only the loss of life, but the end of hope. Ancient Egypt wore yellow in memory of departed friends; the Greeks and Romans used white garments for mourning; the Chinese also consecrate white to the services of death, and the Mohammedans wear blue, because it is the color of the visible heavens.
Therefore I ask, if we must wear a distinct dress to typify our sorrow, why black? Black has now become objectionable from having lost all the sacred meaning it once possessed. It is no longer the livery of grief. The blonde belle wears it because it sets off her fine complexion; the brunette, because it admits of the vivid contrasts so suitable to her brilliant beauty. The prudent wear it because it is economical and ladylike; and all women know that it imparts grace and dignity, and drapes beautifully; so, for these and many other reasons, it has within the last fifty years become an every-day dress, one just as likely to express vanity as grief.
The reasons set forth by the Quakers for 251 its abandonment cover the ground, and are at least worthy of our consideration. They are: First, that mourning had its origin in a state of barbarism, and prior to the revelation of “life eternal through Jesus Christ,” and is therefore not to be observed in civilized and Christianized countries. Second, that the trappings of grief are childish where the grief is real, and mockery where it is not. Third, that mourning garments are absolutely useless: for if they are intended to remind us of our affliction, true grief needs no such reminder; if to point out our grief to others, they are an impertinence, for true sorrow courts seclusion; and if as a consolation, they are only powerful to remind of an irrevocable past. Fourth, their inconvenience: too often the house of death is turned by them into a busy work-shop; and the souls bowed down with grief are made to trouble themselves about mourning ornaments and becoming weeds. Fifth, their bad moral influence: the gracefulness of the costume stills the grief that ought to be stilled by religion; and as in a large family there must be many 252 mourners in form only, the equivocation of dress is a sort of moral equivocation. Sixth, their expense. This is really a great item in the resources of the poor, and often straitens for years; besides causing them, in the hour of their desolation, to be so worried and anxious about the robing of the body as to miss all the lessons God intended for the soul.
The advocates for mourning plead the veiling of the heavens in black at the death of Christ; and the universality and continuance of the custom, in all ages, all countries, and all faiths. I am aware that the subject is one in which strangers cannot intermeddle; the question when it arises must be settled by every heart individually. But, at least, if mourning garments are to be worn, let us not defeat every argument in their favor by fashioning them of the richest stuffs, and in the most stylish manner. This is to ticket them as the thinnest of mockeries. And after all, if we approve mourning, and wish our friends to hold us in remembrance after death, can we not find a better way than by crape and bombazine? 253 Yes, crape and bombazine wear out, and must finally be cast off; but the “memorial of virtue is immortal. When it is present, men take example of it, and when it is gone, they desire it: it weareth a crown, and triumpheth forever.”
Having one’s portrait taken is no longer an isolated event in one’s life. It has become a kind of domestic and social duty, to which even though personally opposed, one must gracefully submit, unless he would incur the odium of neglecting the wishes of his family circle and the complimentary requests of his acquaintances.
It would seem at first sight that nothing is easier than to go to a photographer’s and get a good likeness. Nothing is really more uncertain and disappointing. In turning over the albums of our friends, how often we pass the faces of acquaintances and don’t know them at all! How is this? Simply because, at the moment when the picture was taken, the original was unlike herself. She was nervous, her head was 255 screwed in a vise, her position had been selected for her, and she had been ordered to look at an indicated spot, and keep still. Such a position was like nothing in her real life, and the expression on the face was just as foreign. The features might be perfectly correct, but that inscrutable something which individualizes the face was lacking.
Now if the amenities of social life require us to have our pictures done, “it were as well they were well done,” and much toward this end lies within the sitter’s choice and power.
First as to the selection of the artist. It is a great mistake to imagine that photography is a mere mechanical trade. There is as much difference between two photographers as between two engravers. Nor will a fine lens alone produce a good picture. The pose of the sitter, the disposition of lights and shadows, the arrangement of drapery, are of the greatest consequence. A good artist has almost unlimited power in this direction. He can render certain parts thinner by plunging them into half-tone or by burying their outline in the shade, and he 256 can deepen and augment other portions by surrounding them with light. Thus, if the head is too small for beauty, he can increase its size by throwing the light on the face; and if it is too large, he can diminish it by choosing a tint that would throw one half of the face into shadow.
If the artist has a lens which perpetually changes its focus, the result is a portrait in which the outlines are delicately soft and undefined. A view lens, or one that is perfectly flat, occupies nearly two minutes to complete the likeness, and the consequence is, the sitter moves slightly, and the required softness is obtained in an accidental manner. It is evident, therefore, that the most rapidly taken pictures are not necessarily the best. Then people have a hundred different aspects, and to seize the best and reproduce it is the function of genius, and not of chemicals.
Having selected a good artist, and one, also, whose position has enabled him to secure the best tools, the next duty of the sitter regards herself and her costume. In photography a good portrait may be quite nullified by the choice of bad colors in dress. 257 Finery is the curse of the artist, but if he works in oils he can leave it out or tone it down. In photography, as the sitter comes, so she must be taken, with all her excellences or her imperfections on her head.
The colors most luminous to the eye, as red, yellow, orange, are almost without action; green acts feebly; blue and violet are reproduced very promptly. If, then, a person of very fair complexion were taken in green, orange, or red, the lights would be very prominent, and the portrait lack energy and detail. The best of all dresses is black silk,—silk, not bombazine, or merino, or any cottony mixture, as the admirable effect depends on the gloss of the silk, which makes it full of subdued and reflected lights that give motion and play to the drapery. A dead-black dress without this shimmer would be represented by a uniform blotch; a white dress looks like a flat film of wax or a piece of card-board; but a combination of black net or lace over white is very effective, though rarely ventured upon. An admirable softness and depth of color are given to photographs by sealskin and velvet.
Complexion must be considered with dress. Blondes can wear much lighter colors than brunettes. Brunettes always make the best pictures when taken in dark dresses, but neither blondes nor brunettes look well in positive white. Are any pictures so universally ugly as bridal ones? All violent contrasts of color spoil a picture, and should be particularly guarded against; and jewelry imparts a look of vulgarity.
Blondes suffer most in photographic pictures; their golden hair loses all its brilliancy, and their blue eyes, so lovely to the poet, are perplexity to the photographer. Before facing the lens, blondes should powder their yellow hair nearly white; it is then brought to about the same photographic tint as in nature.
Freckles, which are hardly any blemish in the natural face, become, on account of their yellow tint, very unpleasantly distinct in a photographic picture, and often give to the face a decidedly spotted look. They are easily disguised for the occasion. There ought to be in the dressing-room of every studio a mixture of a little oxide of zinc and 259 glycerine; this is to be thinned with rose-water till of the consistence of cream, and applied to the face with a piece of sponge previous to the photographing process. It leaves the skin a delicate white color, and masks all freckles and discolorations. Let a lady with freckles try her picture first without this mixture, and again after the sponge and the cosmetic, and the value of the receipt will be at once appreciated. Its use has long been advocated by the British Journal of Photography.
In connection with this fact we may offer a few words of advice to ladies whose skins are apt to tan and freckle when exposed to the summer sun. Blue is, of all colors, most readily affected by light; and yellow is, of all colors, the least readily susceptible to it. If, then, a fine complexion is desired, the blue veil must be rigorously discarded, however becoming. Green could take its place, but a little yellow net would be better to save a delicate complexion than all the washes and Kalydors ever invented. Freckles and tan are nothing more than the darkening of the salts of iron in the blood by the action 260 of light; and as blue is, of all colors, most easily affected by it, as we have said, any one can see how destructive to a fine skin a blue veil must be in sunny weather.
If the photograph is to be colored, the shade of the costume is not nearly of so much importance; but it may always be borne in mind that close-fitting light garments increase the size of the head, hands, and feet, and that a flowing ample dress renders these parts light and delicate. The advantage of coloring photographs is very great, if the artist be an able and judicious one, for that hardness of outline, which is more artificial than natural, may be in a great measure remedied by a clever brush; only, always object to solid colors; the most transparent water-colors alone should be used. However, it is a disputed question whether artificial coloring, however well done, improves photographs, since it certainly, in some measure, robs them of that accuracy and that air of purity which are the distinctive claims of the art. The next improvement in this method of limning faces will undoubtedly be the compelling of the sun—the 261 source of all color—to paint the pictures he draws; and a number of recent facts point to this improvement as very probable within a short time.
Never permit yourself to be the lay figure of a photographer’s ideal landscapes. The cutting up of a portrait with balustrades, pillars, and gay parterres is fatal to the effect of the figure, which should be the only object to strike the eye. No photographic portrait looks so well as one with a perfectly plain background, but if some accessory is desired, then see that it does not turn the central figure into ridicule. If you have always lived in some modest home, do not be made to stand in marble halls or amid splendid imaginary domains. Young ladies reading in full evening costume, with water and swans behind them, or standing in trailing silks and laces in a mountain pass, are ridiculous enough. We saw a few days ago the face of a lovely girl looking out of a Champagne basket. The picture was artistically taken, but the extravagant conceit of the surroundings, utterly at variance with the original’s character, completely spoiled the 262 picture. We have in mind also a famous belle sitting in an elaborate toilet in a room full of books and materials for writing and study, though all her little world knows that she never reads aught but the lightest of novels, and never writes anything but an invitation or a love-letter. Actresses taken in character may require an elaborate artificial background in order to assist the illusion, but private ladies, as a rule, look infinitely better without it.
In ladies’ portraits the setting-off of beauty is the thing to be borne in mind. This, in a photograph, is, in a great measure, a question of lights and shadows, and of their distribution. For every face there is a light and a shadow to be specially selected as the one that will show it to the best advantage. The most becoming light is one level with, or even somewhat beneath, the face, it being a great mistake to suppose the foot-lights on the stage unbecoming. A top light, such as we get in ordinary photographic rooms, augments the projection of the forehead, and throws a deep shadow over the eyes. The bridge of the nose, the lower lip, and chin 263 separate themselves, as it were, in clear lights, from the rest of the face, and such an effect is very unbecoming and inappropriate for a young girl.
If the features are prominent, a clear bright light increases very decidedly that prominence, and also imparts a peculiar hardness to the expression that has probably no existence in the model. Therefore insist that, as far as possible, the light from above shall be got rid of, and a light from the side brought into use.
There is as much character in the human figure as in the face; consequently full-length portraits are best, because they add to the facial resemblance the attitude and peculiarities of the figure. If the portrait is half-size, then the attitude ought to indicate the position of the lower extremities. In bust portraits the head is everything, the bust merely sustains and indicates its size and proportion. The head, however, should never be represented without the bust, for the effect of such a portrait is a total want of unity; it offers no point of comparison by which the rest of the body can be judged,—a 264 matter of great importance, as this is one of the most striking characteristics of the individual.
A carte de visite is a more agreeable likeness than a larger one, because it is taken with the middle of the lens, where it is truest; hence it is never out of drawing. Also, it hides rather than exaggerates any roughness of the face; and, again, it is so moderate in price that we can afford to distribute the pictures generously.
Photographs have a bad name for durability, and when we look over our albums and see those that were once strong and expressive now pale and faded, we are forced to admit that their beauty is evanescent. But this disadvantage is very much the fault of the artist. There is nothing in the chemical constitution of photographs—formed as they are by the combination of the precious metals—to make them evanescent. The trouble lies in the last process through which they pass. This process leaves them impregnated with a destructive chemical, and the removal of all traces of it is a difficult and tedious thing. To be finished effectually, 265 the pictures ought to be bathed for a day in a good body of water constantly agitated and changed. Artists who are jealous of their art and of their personal reputation insist on this process being thoroughly attended to, but with inferior photographers the temptation to neglect it is very great, especially as in many cases the vicious chemical adds to the present brilliancy of the picture. They are further tempted by the impatience of sitters, who are often importunate for an immediate finish of their pictures. But if a durable portrait is wanted, ladies must allow the artist time for the proper cleansing of their photograph.
To the large majority of people the first interview with their photographic portrait is a heavy disappointment. They express themselves by an eloquent silence, turn it this way and that, hold it near and far off. After a little while they become used to it in its velvet frame, though they never in their heart acknowledge its truthfulness. Again, there are others to whom photography is very favorable, and they show to more advantage in their pictures than ever they did 266 in reality. These last are people whose features are well balanced and proportioned, but who are not generally considered beautiful. Faces dependent for beauty on their mobility and expression suffer most, and are indeed, in their finer moods, almost untranslatable by this process.
Still, setting aside all artistic considerations, photographic portraits have a great social value, not only because they fairly indicate the personnel of their models, but because they so faithfully represent textures that we can form a very good idea from a carte de visite of the social position of the sitter, and incidentally, from the cut, style, and material of the dress, a very good notion also of their moral calibre.
Many things are permissible in photographic portraits—which may be retaken every few months—that would justly be deprecated in a finished oil portrait destined to go down with houses and lands to unborn generations. In such a picture any intrusion of the imagination is an impertinence if made at the slightest expense of truth.
The great value of an oil portrait is this: 267 the divine, almost intangible light of expression hovering over the face is seized on by living skill and intellect, and imprisoned in colors. The sitter is not taken in one special moment, when his eyes are fixed and his muscles rigid, but in a free study of many hours the characteristics of the face are learned, and some felicitous expression caught and fixed forever. This is what gives portrait painting its special value, and drives ordinary photographic portraits out of the realms of art into those of mechanism.
Artists have various ways of treating their sitters. Some throw them into a Sir-Joshua-like attitude, and put in a Gainsborough background. Others compass the face all over, and map it out like a chart, taking elevations of every mole and dimple. But whenever an artist feels unsafe away from his compasses, and cannot trust himself, sitters should not trust him.
There is a real pleasure in sitting to a master in his art, a real weariness and disgust in sitting to a tyro. It must be remembered that not only is the best expression to be caught, but that the features 268 of any face vary so much under physical changes and mental moods that their differences may actually be measured with a foot-rule. An ordinary artist will measure these distances; an extraordinary artist will catch their subtle effects, and will draw the features as well as the expression at their very best.
A really fine oil portrait should look as well near by as it does at a distance.
Suffer no artist to leave out blemishes which contribute to the character of the original; ugly or pretty, unless a portrait is a likeness, it is worthless. There are very clever artists who cannot paint a true portrait, because they leave every picture redolent of themselves. Thus Bartolozzi in engraving Holbein’s heads, made everything Bartolozzi. But in a portrait the individuality of the sitter should permeate and usurp the whole canvas, so that in looking at it we should think only of the person represented, and quite forget the artist who brought him before us.
It is an axiom that every full-length portrait requires a curtain and a column, every half-length a table, every kit-kat a full face. 269 But surely such rules betray barrenness of invention. Every good position cannot be said to have been exhausted. Why should not every portrait be treated as a part of an historical picture in which the sitter’s position and background and accessories produced the tone and feeling most suitable to his ordinary life? Raphael in his portrait of Leo the Tenth exhibits a faithful study of such subordinates. There is a prayer-book with miniatures, a bell on the table, and a mirror at the back of the chair reflecting the whole scene. One of Rembrandt’s most charming portraits is that of his mother cutting her nails with a pair of scissors.
Never suffer any artist to slur over or hide the hand. The hand is a feature full of beauty and individuality. Any one who has noticed how Vandyck studied and worked out its peculiarities, what beauty and expression he gave to it, will never undervalue its power as an exponent of personality again.
The portraits of men or women occupying prominent positions should always have 270 their name and that of the artist on the back. If this had been done in times past, how many nameless portraits, now of little value, would be held in high estimation! From the time of Henry the Eighth to the time of Charles the First it was usual to insert in a corner the armorial bearings of the person represented. This did not, indeed, accurately identify the individual, but it made it easier to determine. There is a masterpiece of Vandyck’s in the National Gallery of England that goes by the name of “Gevartius.” But no one knows who Gevartius was. Here is an old man’s head made memorable for all time,—a head which would be thought cheap at $10,000, and which, if it were for sale, would attract connoisseurs from all parts of the civilized world, and it is without a name. How much more valuable and interesting it would be if its history were known! Therefore no feeling of modesty should prevent eminent characters from insuring the identity of their pictures. Let us imagine a picture of Abraham Lincoln and one of Professor Morse two hundred years hence, with the name attached in one case, 271 and a mere tradition of identity in the other, and it will be easy to estimate the difference in value.
Americans have been accused of an undue taste for portraiture; the taste has its foundation in the character of the nation. It corresponds with that estimation of the personal worth of a man, and that full appreciation of individual independence, which form such important elements in our national character.