Florida Pier : writings and about / jmcvey.net
Travellers, the Outer Shell, and a Man
Harper’s Weekly (March 27, 1909) : 33
hathitrust : link
Travelling with even a small party is like playing hop-scotch. You are always on one leg, and always jumping madly in an effort to keep your balance and arrive somewhere in a fairly upright position. A trio is the ideal number for complications; and, though the varying situations possible to a trio are usually reserved for stage presentation, it is in travelling en trois that one gathers some idea of the astonishing possibilities. Apparently complete docility reigns, and the three agree on all subjects. Then comes the choice of hotels, a cross-road in the settled route, perhaps as small a matter as whether a carriage is to be taken or walking to be clung to. With a horrid start, one sees why dramatists have invariably shown such a strong preference for the number three. The elements of a problem play are entangled in the triangle, and there is no getting away from them. With three people actively jumping to the corner a moment ago occupied by one of the others a kaleidoscope of change results, and it is travelling , hop-scotch, or miniature drama — all according to one’s point of view.
If number one has too much character, number two has too little, so that number one, as discipline for herself, pretends she has no wishes. Number two, in a desire to have as much independence of thought as any one else, favors definitely a course she takes little interest in; and number three, in an effort to have the matter decided, soon tries to join herself to the majority, with the inevitable consequence that it is she who contradicts herself most often and hopelessly flurries the other two. She presents the ridiculous picture of trying to catch and hold the preference of the others by stepping on its tail. Her antics secure her not a bit of praise, and it is not at all unlikely that they bring upon her the reputation of being a difficult traveller. Two people disagreeing go their separate ways, rejoin when their individual tastes have been satisfied, and nothing more serious happens than a mutual impression that the other is a person of strong will. But three — ah, the exquisite tortures of it! Two are sure to agree to be ashamed of siding against the other, and to refuse to go off alone, as it would leave the third forlornly able to do as she likes. It would seem that the two who agree would make ideal travelling companions, and ought to manage to make a trip alone sometime; but any one who has travelled with their family knows that the two who agree are never the same two. Sometimes it is one and three, at others one and two or two and three. The one that is out always suggests a readjustment, and the two whose minds were made up change them from sheer exhaustion. When one course is finally decided upon by all three, it is from tottering weakness, and the person who was holding out to walk joins the others in the carriage from an immediate need of sitting down.
—
There used to be certain things about which every one felt a comfortable certainty. A man with a square, clearly marked chin, for instance, was a well of strength, and a woman with fluffy yellow hair and a dainty body was a butterfly. These signs were distinct; we recognized them easily and knew at once what to do, but recently people have taken to not fitting their exteriors at all, and it is most disconcerting. They may or may not be to blame, but the result is undoubtedly deceitful. A man with a chin more or less reticent about its owner’s qualities may be so strong that every weak thing for miles around scuttles to him and clutters up his path, while the faded young god-of-the-morn type of man, with a chin fitted to cleave the difficulties of nations, is in reality of a limpness. People must overcome these contradictions, and have sufficient courtesy and thoughtfulness for others to look what they are. The little fluttering women are sure to be militant in their staunchness, containing what is a prodigal amount of fibre when one compares it with even the reckless inches of our present giantesses, while the big women , with open brows and an air of deeply brooding serenity are neurotic flirts. Now this is a pretty state of affairs. We have kept an idea of what is suitable, If others have not. It is going to be a most laborious business to remember that the flashing eye we seem to be talking to is inside a cowering orb, and vice versa. Such conversations have the same awkwardness as an intimate chat conducted through an interpreter. They arouse a rage which must be vented on some one, yet think of the delicacy of the task of deciding who it is blocking progress.
It is necessary in these present days, when we take on such heavy coatings of acquired personality, to overcome the outposts before we are in any position to know whether we like or dislike the simple, probably nice, person inside a really difficult process, and one that often requires more time than most people at the moment have. Oscar Wilde said that he lived in constant fear of not being misunderstood. Though it is impossible not to appreciate his feelings, most people call in nature to back up their own efforts at a disguise. A nose used to contradict a pose and give us a cue that undid much of the posing person’s carefully contrived work. Now features and figures fall right in with the plans of their owners, and excavating under the crusted exterior is left to the few who do it from sheer perversity, because they think they ought to stay on the outside. What a farcical catastrophe it would be if after years of hiding under a face that bore no resemblance to the one you should have had, and mountains of manner built out of the observations of others, you should forget how to come out and, hopelessly lost in your own disguise, wander unhappily about, hoping that some stray moving-van would smash a harmless hole in your exterior and so give you a chance to crawl out.
—
He was the only man in the suit department, and he had the desperate air of a person so completely ignored as to be in momentary danger of disintegrating. All around him women were trying on coats and pirouetting in skirts held in place by black-robed saleswomen. He kept his eyes determinedly on his wife, who stood ashamed before a mirror while coats foreign to her intentions were placed upon her subdued person. The fittings were conducted in silence except for the running comment of the saleswoman, which was so meaningless and endless as to seem nil. He, though more than attentive to every coat, did not talk because the garments seemed things hardly to be discussed in public. His wife was silent because the sight of herself in the mirror had hynotized her. She gazed with a stolid modesty at the surprising things that were happening to her figure, and for very inability to look away stared brazenly at herself. The chatter of the saleswoman stopped; she had asked a question and was waiting for an answer. The man and his wife in mutual foncusion said, “What?” The saleswoman looked annoyed; she was accustomed to having more attention paid to her remarks. “I said,” and her tone was coldly reproving, “does the lady wear stays?”
“The lady?” It was the husband who spoke, and he felt the question one to be treated with discretion.
“Your wife. I asked if she wore stays.” The saleswoman had reached a pinnacle of delicacy in her first demand, and she had no intention of transposing it so that more vulgar ears might understand. Her hands were on her hips, and she dared any one to make her say corsets.
“Oh,” the husband and wife comprehended in the same breath, and the wife answered with some bravery, “I do.”
“Oh well, in that case” (the saleswoman’s nostrils contracted with scorn), “I can’t promise you a fit; no one has been wearing stays for fully three weeks.”
The woman winced; this public reprimand hurt. “Can you show me some more coats?” she murmured. “I’d like to settle on something.”
A crushed-wistaria garment was buttoned on her and her husband rose. “Maria!” he exclaimed, and he seemed to be clutching her from the lion’s mouth, “take that off. You don’t look respectable in any of them, and I’m not going to have you wear such things.”
The saleswoman angrily peeled off the crushed-wistaria and retorted, “Well, if you wanted to look respectable I don’t see why you tried any of this year’s styles; you better wear something old if your husband is of a nervous disposition. I supposed everyone knew it was the thing to look scandalous.” And a moment later she was lost in the maze of femininity.
When the man and his wife found themselves again on the street they sighed, and knew their escape to have been a narrow one.
20260725