Becoming America - An Exploration of American Literature from Precolonial to Post-Revolution, 2018a

BECOMING AMERICA
REVOLUTIONARY AND EARLY NATIONAL PERIOD LITERATURE
and if a married lady is in company, we have such a sweet dissertation upon her
son Bobby’s chin-cough; then the curtain rises, then our sensibility is all awake,
and then, by the mere force of apprehension, we torture some harmless expression
into a double meaning, which the poor author never dreamt of, and then we have
recourse to our fans, and then we blush, and then the gentlemen jog one another,
peep under the fan, and make the prettiest remarks; and then we giggle and they
simper, and they giggle and we simper, and then the curtain drops, and then for
nuts and oranges, and then we bow, and it’s pray, Ma’am, take it, and pray, Sir,
keep it, and oh! not for the world, Sir; and then the curtain rises again, and then we
blush and giggle and simper and bow all over again. Oh! the sentimental charms of
a side-box conversation! [All laugh.]
MANLY
Well, sister, I join heartily with you in the laugh; for, in my opinion, it is as justiable
to laugh at folly as it is reprehensible to ridicule misfortune.
CHARLOTTE
Well, but, brother, positively I can’t introduce you in these clothes: why, your coat
looks as if it were calculated for the vulgar purpose of keeping yourself comfortable.
MANLY
This coat was my regimental coat in the late war. The public tumults of our state
have induced me to buckle on the sword in support of that government which I
once fought to establish. I can only say, sister, that there was a time when this coat
was respectable, and some people even thought that those men who had endured so
many winter campaigns in the service of their country, without bread, clothing, or
pay, at least deserved that the poverty of their appearance should not be ridiculed.
CHARLOTTE
We agree in opinion entirely, brother, though it would not have done for me to
have said it: it is the coat makes the man respectable. In the time of the war,
when we were almost frightened to death, why, your coat was respectable, that is,
fashionable; now another kind of coat is fashionable, that is, respectable. And pray
direct the taylor to make yours the height of the fashion.
MANLY
Though it is of little consequence to me of what shape my coat is, yet, as to the height
of the fashion, there you will please to excuse me, sister. You know my sentiments
on that subject. I have often lamented the advantage which the French have over
us in that particular. In Paris, the fashions have their dawnings, their routine, and
declensions, and depend as much upon the caprice of the day as in other countries;
but there every lady assumes a right to deviate from the general ton as far as will
be of advantage to her own appearance. In America, the cry is, what is the fashion?
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