The Dressing-Sack Habit

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Title:     The Dressing-Sack Habit
Author: Myrtle Reed [More Titles by Reed]

Someone has said that a dressing-sack is only a Mother Hubbard with a college education. Accepting this statement as a great truth, one is inclined to wonder whether education has improved the Mother Hubbard, since another clever person has characterised a college as "a place where pebbles are polished and diamonds are dimmed!"

The bond of relationship between the two is not at first apparent, yet there are subtle ties of kinship between the two. If we take a Hubbard and cut it off at the hips, we have only a dressing-sack with a yoke. The dressing-sack, however, cannot be walked on, even when the wearer is stooping, and in this respect it has the advantage of the other; it is also supposed to fit in the back, but it never does.

Doubtless in the wise economy of the universe, where every weed has its function, even this garment has its place--else it would not be.

Possibly one may take a nap, or arrange one's crown of glory to better advantage in a "boudoir négligée," or an invalid may be thus tempted to think of breakfast. Indeed, the habit is apt to begin during illness, when a friend presents the ailing lady with a dainty affair of silk and lace which inclines the suffering soul to frivolities. Presently she sits up, takes notice, and plans more garments of the sort, so that after she fully recovers all the world may see these becoming things!

The worst of the habit is that all the world does see. Fancy runs riot with one pattern, a sewing-machine, and all the remnants a single purse can compass. The lady with a kindly feeling for colour browses along the bargain counter and speedily acquires a rainbow for her own. Each morning she assumes a different phase, and, at the end of the week, one's recollection of her is lost in a kaleidoscopic whirl.

Red, now--is anything prettier than red? And how the men admire it! Does not the dark lady build wisely who dons a red dressing-sack on a cold morning, that her husband may carry a bright bit of colour to the office in his fond memories of home?

A book with a red cover, a red cushion, crimson draperies, and scarlet ribbons, are all notoriously pleasing to monsieur--why not a red dressing-sack?

If questioned, monsieur does not know why, yet gradually his passion for red will wane, then fail. Later in the game, he will be affronted by the colour, even as the gentleman cow in the pasture. It is not the colour, dear madame, but the shiftless garment, which has wrought this change.

There are few who dare to assume pink, for one must have a complexion of peaches and cream, delicately powdered at that, before the rosy hues are becoming. Yet, the sallow lady, with streaks of grey in her hair, crow's feet around her eyes, and little time tracks registered all over her face, will put on a pink dressing-sack when she gets ready for breakfast. She would scream with horror at the thought of a pink and white organdie gown, made over rosy taffeta, but the kimono is another story.

Green dressing-sacks are not often seen, but more's the pity, for in the grand array of colour nothing should be lacking, and the wearers of these garments never seem to stop to think whether or not they are becoming. What could be more cheerful on a cloudy morning than a flannel négligée of the blessed shade of green consecrated to the observance of the seventeenth of March?

It looks as well as many things which are commonly welded into dressing-sacks; then why this invidious distinction?

When we approach blue in our dressing-sack rainbow, speech becomes pitifully weak. Ancient maidens and matrons, with olive skins, proudly assume a turquoise négligée. Blue flannel, with cascades of white lace--could anything be more attractive? It has only one rival--the garment of lavender eiderdown flannel, the button-holes stitched with black yarn, which the elderly widow too often puts on when the tide of her grief has turned.

The combination of black with any shade of purple is well fitted to produce grief, even as the cutting of an onion will bring tears. Could the dear departed see his relict in the morning, with lavender eiderdown environment, he would appreciate his mercies as never before.

The speaking shades of yellow and orange are much affected by German ladies for dressing-sacks, and also for the knitted tippets which our Teutonic friends wear, in and out of the house, from October to July. Canary yellow is delicate and becoming to most, but it is German taste to wear orange.

At first, perhaps, with a sense of the fitness of things, the négligée is worn only in one's own room. She says: "It's so comfortable!" There are degrees in comfort, varying from the easy, perfect fit of one's own skin to a party gown which dazzles envious observers, and why is the adjective reserved for the educated but abbreviated Mother Hubbard?

"The apparel oft proclaims the man," and even more is woman dependent upon her clothes for physical, moral, and intellectual support. An uncorseted body will soon make its influence felt upon the mind. The steel-and-whalebone spine which properly reinforces all feminine vertebra is literally the backbone of a woman's self-respect.

Would the iceman or the janitor hesitate to "talk back" to the uncorseted lady in a pink dressing-sack?--Hardly!

But confront the erring man with a quiet, dignified woman in a crisp shirt-waist and a clean collar--verily he will think twice before he ventures an excuse for his failings.

The iceman and the grocery boy see more dressing-sacks than most others, for they are privileged to approach the back doors of residences, and to hold conversations with the lady of the house, after the departure of him whose duty and pleasure it is to pay for the remnants. And in the lower strata they are known by their clothes.

"Fifty pounds for the red dressing-sack," says the iceman to his helper, "and a hundred for the blue. Step lively now!"

And how should madame know that her order for a steak, a peck of potatoes, and two lemons, is registered in the grocery boy's book under the laconic title, "Pink"?

* * * * *

After breakfast, when she sits down to read the paper and make her plans for the day, the insidious dressing-sack gets in its deadly work.

"I won't dress," she thinks, "until I get ready to go out." After luncheon, she is too tired to go out, and too nearly dead to dress.

Friends come in, perhaps, and say: "Oh, how comfortable you look! Isn't that a dear kimono?" Madame plumes herself with conscious pride, for indeed it is a dear kimono, and already she sees herself with a reputation for "exquisite négligée."

The clock strikes six, and presently the lord of the manor comes home to be fed. "I'm dreadfully sorry, dear, you should find me looking so," says the lady of his heart, "but I just haven't felt well enough to dress. You don't mind, do you?"

The dear, good, subdued soul says he is far from minding, and dinner is like breakfast as far as dressing-sacks go.

Perhaps, in the far depths of his nature, the man wonders why it was that, in the halcyon days of courtship, he never beheld his beloved in the midst of a gunny--no, a dressing-sack. Of course, then, she didn't have to keep house, and didn't have so many cares to tire her. Poor little thing! Perhaps she isn't well!

Isn't she? Let another woman telephone that she has tickets for the matinée, and behold the transformation! Within certain limits and barring severe headaches, a woman is always well enough to do what she wants to do--and no more.

As the habit creeps upon its victim, she loses sight of the fact that there are other clothes. If she has a golf cape, she may venture to go to the letter-box or even to market in her favourite garment. After a while, when the habit is firmly fixed, a woman will wear a dressing-sack all the time--that is, some women will, except on rare and festive occasions. Sometimes in self-defence, she will say that her husband loves soft, fluffy feminine things, and can't bear to see her in a tailor-made outfit. This is why she wears the "soft fluffy things," which, with her, always mean dressing-sacks, all the time he is away from home, as well as when he is there.

It is a mooted question whether shiftlessness causes dressing-sacks, or dressing-sacks cause shiftlessness, but there is no doubt about the loving association of the two. The woman who has nothing to do, and not even a shadow of a purpose in life, will enshrine her helpless back in a dressing-sack. She can't wear corsets, because, forsooth, they "hurt" her. She can't sit at the piano, because it's hard on her back. She can't walk, because she "isn't strong enough." She can't sew, because it makes a pain between her shoulders, and indeed why should she sew when she has plenty of dressing-sacks?

This type of woman always boards, if she can, or has plenty of servants at her command, and, in either case, her mind is free to dwell upon her troubles.

First, there is her own weak physical condition. Just wait until she tells you about the last pain she had. She doesn't feel like dressing for dinner, but she will try to wash her face, if you will excuse her! When she returns, she has plucked up enough energy to change her dressing-sack!

The only cure for the habit is a violent measure which few indeed are brave enough to adopt. Make a bonfire of the offensive garments, dear lady; then stay away from the remnant counters, and after a while you will become immune.

Nothing is done in a négligée of this sort which cannot be done equally well in a shirt-waist, crisp and clean, with a collar and belt.

There is a popular delusion to the effect that household tasks require slipshod garments and unkempt hair, but let the frowsy ones contemplate the trained nurse in her spotless uniform, with her snowy cap and apron and her shining hair. Let the doubtful ones go to a cooking school, and see a neat young woman, in a blue gingham gown and a white apron, prepare an eight-course dinner and emerge spotless from the ordeal. We get from life, in most cases, exactly what we put into it. The world is a mirror which gives us smiles or frowns, as we ourselves may choose. The woman who faces the world in a shirt-waist will get shirt-waist appreciation, while for the dressing-sack there is only a slipshod reward.

[The end]
Myrtle Reed's essay: Dressing-Sack Habit

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