Гарриет Бичер-Стоу - Pink and White Tyranny

Whether young women, while disengaged, do not have proper under-clothing, or whether they contemplate marriage as an awful gulf which swallows up all future possibilities of replenishing a wardrobe,—certain it is that no sooner is a girl engaged to be married than there is a blind and distracting rush and pressure and haste to make up for her immediately a stock of articles, which, up to that hour, she has managed to live very comfortably and respectably without. It is astonishing to behold the number of inexpressible things with French names which unmarried young ladies never think of wanting, but which there is a desperate push to supply, and have ranged in order, the moment the matrimonial state is in contemplation.

Therefore it was that the virgin bower of Lillie was knee-deep in a tangled mass of stuffs of various hues and description; that the sharp sound of tearing off breadths resounded there; that Miss Clippins and Miss Snippings and Miss Nippins were sewing there day and night; that a sewing-machine was busily rattling in mamma’s room; and that there were all sorts of pinking and quilling, and braiding and hemming, and whipping and ruffling, and over-sewing and cat-stitching and hem-stitching, and other female mysteries, going on.

As for Lillie, she lay in a loose negligé on the bed, ready every five minutes to be called up to have something measured, or tried on, or fitted; and to be consulted whether there should be fifteen or sixteen tucks and then an insertion, or sixteen tucks and a series of puffs. Her labors wore upon her; and it was smilingly observed by Miss Clippins across to Miss Nippins, that Miss Lillie was beginning to show her “engagement bones.” In the midst of these preoccupations, a letter was handed to her by the giggling chambermaid. It was a thick letter, directed in a bold honest hand. Miss Lillie took it with a languid little yawn, finished the last sentences in a chapter of the novel she was reading, and then leisurely broke the seal and glanced it over. It was the one that the enraptured John had spent his morning in writing.

“Miss Ellis, now, if you’ll try on this jacket—oh! I beg your pardon,” said Miss Clippins, observing the letter, “we can wait, of course; ” and then all three laughed as if something very pleasant was in their minds.

“No,” said Lillie, giving the letter a toss; “it’ll keep; ” and she stood up to have a jaunty little blue jacket, with its pluffy bordering of swan’s down, fitted upon her.

“It’s too bad, now, to take you from your letter,” said Miss Clippins, with a sly nod.

“I’m sure you take it philosophically,” said Miss Nippins, with a giggle.

“Why shouldn’t I?” said the divine Lillie. “I get one every day; and it’s all the old story. I’ve heard it ever since I was born.”

“Well, now, to be sure you have. Let’s see,” said Miss Clippins, “this is the seventy-fourth or seventy-fifth offer, was it?”

“Oh, you must ask mamma! she keeps the lists: I’m sure I don’t trouble my head,” said the little beauty; and she looked so natty and jaunty when she said it, just arching her queenly white neck, and making soft, downy dimples in her cheeks as she gave her fresh little childlike laugh; turning round and round before the looking-glass, and issuing her orders for the fitting of the jacket with a precision and real interest which showed that there were things in the world which didn’t become old stories, even if one had been used to them ever since one was born.

Lillie never was caught napping when the point in question was the fit of her clothes.

When released from the little blue jacket, there was a rose-colored morning-dress to be tried on, and a grave discussion as to whether the honiton lace was to be set on plain or frilled.

So important was this case, that mamma was summoned from the sewing-machine to give her opinion. Mrs. Ellis was a fat, fair, rosy matron of most undisturbed conscience and digestion, whose main business in life had always been to see to her children’s clothes. She had brought up Lillie with faithful and religious zeal; that is to say, she had always ruffled her underclothes with her own hands, and darned her stockings, sick or well; and also, as before intimated, kept a list of her offers, which she was ready in confidential moments to tell off to any of her acquaintance. The question of ruffled or plain honiton was of such vital importance, that the whole four took some time in considering it in its various points of view.

“Sarah Selfridge had hers ruffled,” said Lillie.

“And the effect was perfectly sweet,” said Miss Clippins.

“Perhaps, Lillie, you had better have it ruffled,” said mamma.

“But three rows laid on plain has such a lovely effect,” said Miss Nippins.

“Perhaps, then, she had better have three rows laid on plain,” said mamma.

“Or she might have one row ruffled on the edge, with three rows laid on plain, with a satin fold,” said Miss Clippins. “That’s the way I fixed Miss Elliott’s.”

“That would be a nice way,” said mamma. “Perhaps, Lillie, you’d better have it so.”

“Oh! come now, all of you, just hush,” said Lillie. “I know just how I want it done.”

The words may sound a little rude and dictatorial; but Lillie had the advantage of always looking so pretty, and saying dictatorial things in such a sweet voice, that everybody was delighted with them; and she took the matter of arranging the trimming in hand with a clearness of head which showed that it was a subject to which she had given mature consideration. Mrs. Ellis shook her fat sides with a comfortable motherly chuckle.

“Lillie always did know exactly what she wanted: she’s a smart little thing.”

And, when all the trying on and arranging of folds and frills and pinks and bows was over, Lillie threw herself comfortably upon the bed, to finish her letter.

Shrewd Miss Clippins detected the yawn with which she laid down the missive.

“Seems to me your letters don’t meet a very warm reception,” she said.

“Well! every day, and such long ones!” Lillie answered, turning over the pages. “See there,” she went on, opening a drawer, “What a heap of them! I can’t see, for my part, what any one can want to write a letter every day to anybody for. John is such a goose about me.”

“He’ll get over it after he’s been married six months,” said Miss Clippins, nodding her head with the air of a woman that has seen life.

“I’m sure I shan’t care,” said Lillie, with a toss of her pretty head. “It’s borous any way.”

Our readers may perhaps imagine, from the story thus far, that our little Lillie is by no means the person, in reality, that John supposes her to be, when he sits thinking of her with such devotion, and writing her such long, “borous” letters.

She is not. John is in love not with the actual Lillie Ellis, but with that ideal personage who looks like his mother’s picture, and is the embodiment of all his mother’s virtues. The feeling, as it exists in John’s mind, is not only a most respectable, but in fact a truly divine one, and one that no mortal man ought to be ashamed of. The love that quickens all the nature, that makes a man twice manly, and makes him aspire to all that is high, pure, sweet, and religious,—is a feeling so sacred, that no unworthiness in its object can make it any less beautiful. More often than not it is spent on an utter vacancy. Men and women both pass through this divine initiation,—this sacred inspiration of our nature,—and find, when they have come into the innermost shrine, where the divinity ought to be, that there is no god or goddess there; nothing but the cold black ashes of commonplace vulgarity and selfishness. Both of them, when the grand discovery has been made, do well to fold their robes decently about them, and make the best of the matter. If they cannot love, they can at least be friendly. They can tolerate, as philosophers; pity, as Christians; and, finding just where and how the burden of an ill-assorted union galls the least, can then and there strap it on their backs, and walk on, not only without complaint, but sometimes in a cheerful and hilarious spirit.