Scan 4
Musical Courier 1899-11-29: Vol 39 Iss 1028, 1899
110 lines. Read by computer on 21 September 2026. Printed page 5. See the scan on archive.org.
1THE MUSICAL COURIER.
3LONDON AND PARIS.
5The only "living" civilization is in the United States. Here in London is the same blooming poverty of all modern comfort and convenience as in Paris, with the addition of more dirt.
7We are by no means perfect, heaven knows, but we at least see it and stir under it, think, plan, change, invent and fight imperfection. These people here all sit down under it, blind to it, or bearing it, blissfully content that everything is all right and as well as it can be.
9The cursed grate, jug and basin, washstand, shut window, impracticable blind, candle, lamp, lack of closet room and clothes press and incessant stair mountings exist as in France.
11And the same fight to wash!
13Ah! this unfortunate, this disastrous habit of washing and bathing the body, which we Americans have contracted! Why ever did we invent it? What a hell it makes of our stay in Europe! As well go off and do battle in Africa or the Philippines at once and have done with it.
15It is entirely useless to tell us that the French are clean, that no people wash as much as the English, to cite to us the tub and sponge, &c. With demand comes always supply. It is inevitable. Any country that supports a washstand, jug and basin, in a cold room, and charges extra for a bath, is not and cannot be a clean country. It has not the instincts of cleanliness, and it is useless to assert it.
17Imagine us lifting a jug and pouring some hot water out of it into a basin, then setting that jug down upon the floor and lifting another from which to pour cold, then a little warm to regulate the cold, then a little cold to regulate the heat, and so on. Then washing in sections or in haste to make it "go round," then standing shivering while carrying the basin around the side of the stand to empty it, and recommencing—an operation to be performed three or four times. And this of course but half the operation, as in the interest of health the body cannot be left all day varnished with a coating of soap. This, not to speak of the water's becoming cold and giving out in the midst of operations.
19Imagine our supporting such a condition of things!
21Then imagine having to order a bath as you would a sleeping car berth on a train or some other "unnecessary luxury." Imagine having so many quarts of water heated by temporary, artificial means, so that you are obliged to "hustle" the instant it is warm that it may not get cold again, and in the midst of your ablutions to hear that contemptible squeak of incompetence from somewhere in the pipe which tells you that the supply has given out and that you must renounce further operations till next time.
23And you have paid, mind you, for the too small tub and the too little water (which is hard), for the towels, for the soap and for the bare room without towel rack, chair or heat!
25Imagine our enduring such things!
27Countries are not cleanly and people are not clean where such customs are allowed to exist and to continue year after year, century after century. In provincial towns of Arabia or Abyssinia there might be some excuse. At least we could say Christianity did not prevail, and that therefore, &c. But in the largest centres of so-called civilization it is unpardonable.
29They do not know what cleanliness means over here, and barber, coiffeur, Turkish bath keeper and doctor are just as benighted on the subject as are private individuals. The whole rank and file of them are benighted on the subject of comfort and hygiene and correct living. This is all that can be said, and there is no getting around it.
31The rubber tub hanging on a nail in London is a remove from the no wash at all of the French, but no country can be called clean which tolerates such heathenish customs.
33Paris has of late been importing "fog" with other smart novelties from over the Channel, but in the elegant French capital it is only "cloud"; a floating gossamer mystery that spoils ostrich feathers and makes you cough. London is a gas house in operation, in which you live, move and have your being.
35The window, the door, the mantel and everything on it, the dressing table, the walls, the clock, your coat, dress, skirts, stockings—well, that is sufficient—are all varnished with a fine, thick, blue bloom that is black as ink underneath, sticky as gum and smells—well, better than Paris omnibuses.
37The only place in which there is not a sufficient supply of coal deposit is in the grate.
39Here the same cheerless, dismal, poverty stricken rooms, halls and stairways, as in Paris; the same ruin of comfort, the same wretched squalor.
41Curtains flapping in the wind of the room, the furniture glassy, the air that of an ice house, goose flesh all over you, yet the owner in shawl, moist blue nose, wrinkled hands and hair on end, coughing and handkerchiefing, stands there asserting that this is the only healthy condition; much healthier in fact than it can be in the States, with all that hot air and steam rushing about apartments!
43To urge that because heat is possible it is not therefore obligatory, that having a door to a room does not necessitate its being open, and that heat and cold may be controlled at will—this is to send the hearer coughing and sneezing on the double to avoid saying something illogical, as a French person would under the circumstances.
45An Englishman says nothing rather than be unreasonable, which is wise. A French person insists to the point of idiocy upon the wrong side of a question.
47Women walk horribly in London; that is, "awfully," and this is without exception almost.
49Those who do not pretend to walk, walk "all over and every which way." Those who make the attempt at "style" are almost ridiculous. These walk from their necks, the heels farther forward than the head, the back on a slant of some 30 degrees. The smart ones look like manikins being pushed along by invisible hands, the others look loose jointed.
51The French woman throws the limbs forward from the hips, military fashion, and the feet out, which is why she never gets a spot of mud on her dress. The English walk from the knees, dragging and lifting the heels behind, and come home with mud to the waist.
53I was about to say "to the waist line," but, alas! there is none. Here is the essential point of demarkation between English and French "style."
55This is not a question of lacing, as many imagine. One need not necessarily be laced to give a waist indication which corresponds with the type. Any person, large or small, may have this. All French women have it, large or small. Yet all do not lace.
57The French woman will have a corset under a shroud. The English women seem to be walking in dark shrouds, enveloping what must be guessed at. They all seem dressed in bathing suits. Even when a waist is designated the departure from it is badly made, as are the lines from the shoulders to it.
59Jacket, jacket, coat, coat, and again coat and jacket, is the order of the day in London. They seem to search expressly the most ungraceful lengths. The shoulders are all too narrow, the collars too tame, the skirts of the jacket badly cut.
61The absence of holding up the dress skirt, and consequent disengagement of the arms, is another characteristic observable on London streets.
63One cannot imagine a French woman except as manipulating some article of dress—the skirt on the street, the fichu or train in salon or hall, and the fan when seated—always "manipulating."
65The English skirt is not too short, but for a short skirt is badly cut. It hangs straight, flaps about the heels and gives the impression of having no skirt under it.
67The French short skirt is gored with a chic in the lines, is always stiff over the heels, and falls rhythmically with the step—never flaps. Part of this is due to the step, part to the cut of the skirt.
69All English belts are too wide and too straight and have not a particle of suggestion in them. Every French woman's belt is an invitation.
71The English dress to cover themselves and not to catch cold. The French dress to catch praise and attention. The former looks as if she had her mind on where she was going and what she was going to do, of things she had read and heard and was thinking about. The latter always looks as if looking in a mirror. The English woman looks as if she put her things on in the hall on the way out; the French woman as if the modiste had made her clothes for her upon her, and as if she walked straight out from the atelier each time.
73The English costume may look "trim"—never "delicious." Its neatness is almost always stiffness.
75The English hair is universally better than the French—younger, cleaner and more luxuriant. Hair in Paris looks smeared, dried up, thin, but placed about the head by an artist. The beautiful English hair looks put up "out of the way."
77Complexions are generally lovely in London, with old and young; but the faces are vacantly sensible, like masks. There is no charm in the face when talking. A zip comes into French expression unknown in London. Even an extremely plain French woman becomes piquant and fascinating the instant she commences to converse.
79Besides the lack of taste in dress in London there is a woeful lack of precision in putting it on. The English girl looks as if she had been dressed with a pike. The French woman is the essence of exactitude and precision from top to toe. An irregularity of shoe lace or aigrette condemns a costume of diamonds and lace.
81French taste has an unconscious logic in it which is invincible, although there is none whatever in French intellect. Essentially reasonable in character, the English have no raison d'être in hat, hair, tie, sash, button or buckle. This is what constitutes their lack of taste.
83Both French and English women and girls have large hands.
85City taste lies in the art of disguising utility by beauty as much as possible.
87In Paris one has trouble to find the useful for the beautiful. In London there is no disguise; all is utility.
89(This does not say that there are not treasures of art and literature there. It refers only to the ordinary daily city aspect.)
91There is no city taste in London. In Paris an ordinary promenade is a bath of delight. Everywhere the eye rests it finds soothing satisfaction, pleasure, almost joy, often rising to an excitement of the senses that is inspirational.
93In London the line and color sense are incessantly offended and never regaled. A walk is a shower of fine blows upon the taste nerves. Shop windows, clothing, movement, everything is marked by an absence of grace, an utter absence of "useless beauty" mingling with utility.
95This constitutes the beauty, the elegance, the charm of Paris. There is no object or means of usefulness which is not disguised as much as possible by sprays from the imagination. When, indeed, a conflict arises between the two, it is the imagination that usually wins to the sacrifice of usefulness and comfort.
97Thus, to make a graceful line of curve on the outside wall of a house all possibility of closet convenience is frequently excluded from the room within, and the occupant, man or woman, hangs up his or her clothes under the bed, happy in the consciousness that a line of beauty has been added to the world.
99This is an absolutely correct indication of the type of mind of the real Gaul. Alas! the swift and forceful current of progress, the invasion of strangers, the demands of modern activity are fast undermining this unconscious taste integrity, which is the best part of the French character. They are doing their best, many of them, to resist the wave. It is a fight pathetic in its hopelessness, and each exposition carries with it thousands who renounce the unequal struggle.
101Still much of the spirit yet prevails, and this is what makes Paris so beautiful and charming without, so cheerless and homeless within. The outside calls for the exercise of the artistic or taste sense, and is symbolic of character. The inside, calling for comfort, convenience, utility, is—a desert.
103London has little or none of the outside grace, but compared with Paris much more of the inside comfort. Compared with us in this latter, London yet remains a desert. Once we realize the force of the beauty element in our souls, we have energy, invention and means sufficient to unite the two. We will be the first to do this.
105Things seem huddled in London, huddled and muffled; no clear lines, no ease, no grace. What parks are there are not cared for as in Paris. Hedges are scraggy and trees scrawny. Things are woody, but not fairy-like. There is no love in the care of them—only planting and protection. Paris parks are foyers of Paradise.
107The London shop windows are horrors, stuffed and crammed with articles all huddled together like events in a nightmare. There is no raison d'être in the exposition any more than in the ladies' hat trimmings. In London things are put in the windows to sell; in Paris to please the eye sense, to touch the imagination, the art feeling. In Paris the arrangement is suggestive, delicate and full of perspective. In London it is a simple showing of goods. Dry goods, millinery, silver, shoes, cakes, books—everywhere and in everything the same expression of being stuffed together.
109It must be said in this connection that the inside resource of the London shop is much more in keeping with the outside show than is that of the French, a feature which is thoroughly characteristic. One is daily life, one
The computer misreads some letters and numbers. Where a name matters to you, read the scan.