William Hazlitt
On fashion
Fashion
is an odd jumble of contradictions, of sympathies and antipathies. It exists
only by its being participated among a certain number of persons, and its
essence is destroyed by being communicated to a greater number. It is a
continual struggle between ‘ the great vulgar and the small’ to get the start
of or keep up with each other in the race of appearances, by an adoption on the
part of the one of such external and fantastic symbols as strike the attention
and excite the envy or admiration of the beholder, and which are no sooner made
known and exposed to public view for this purpose, than they are successfully
copied by the multitude, the slavish herd of imitators who do not wish to be
behind-hand with their betters in outward show and pretensions, and which then
sink, without any farther notice, into disrepute and contempt. Thus fashion
lives only in a perpetual round of giddy innovation and restless vanity. To be
old-fashioned is the greatest crime a coat or a hat can be guilty of. To look
like nobody else is a sufficiently mortifying reflection; to be in danger of
being mistaken for one of the rabble is worse. Fashion constantly begins and
ends in the two things it abhors most, singularity and vulgarity. It is the
perpetual setting up and disowning a certain standard of taste, elegance, and
refinement, which has no other foundation or authority than that it is the
prevailing distinction of the moment, which was yesterday ridiculous from its
being new, and to-morrow will be odious from its being common. It is one of the
most slight and insignificant of all things. It cannot be lasting, for it
depends on the constant change and shifting of its own harlequin disguises; it
cannot be sterling, for, if it were, it could not depend on the breath of
caprice; it must be superficial, to produce its immediate effect on the gaping
crowd; and frivolous, to admit of its being assumed at pleasure by the numbers
of those who affect, by being in the fashion, to be distinguished from the rest
of the world. It is not any thing in itself, nor the sign of any thing but the
folly and vanity of those who rely upon it as their greatest pride and
ornament. It takes the firmest hold of the most flimsy and narrow minds, of
those whose emptiness conceives of nothing excellent but what it thought so by
others, and whose self-conceit makes them willing to confine the opinion of all
excellence to themselves and those like them. That which is true or beautiful
in itself, is not the less so for standing alone. That which is good for any
thing, is the better for being more widely diffused. But fashion is the
abortive issue of vain ostentation and exclusive egotism : it is haughty,
trifling, affected, servile, despotic, mean, and ambitious, precise and
fantastical, all in a breath—tied to no rule, and bound to conform to every
whim of the minute. ‘The fashion of an hour old mocks the wearer.’ It is a
sublimated essence of levity, caprice, vanity, extravagance, idleness, and
selfishness. It thinks of nothing but not being contaminated by vulgar use, and
winds and doubles like a hare, and betakes itself to the most paltry shifts to
avoid being overtaken by the common hunt that are always in full chase after
it. It contrives to keep up its fastidious pretensions, not by the difficulty
of the attainment, but by the rapidity and evanescent nature of the changes. It
is a sort of conventional badge, or understood passport into select circles,
which must still be varying (like the water-mark in banknotes) not to be
counterfeited by those without the pale of fashionable society ; for to make
the test of admission to all the privileges of that refined and volatile
atmosphere depend on any real merit or extraordinary accomplishment, would
exclude too many of the pert, the dull, the ignorant, too many shallow,
upstart, and self-admiring pretenders, to enable the few that passed muster to
keep one another in any tolerable countenance. If it were the fashion, for
instance, to be distinguished for virtue, it would be difficult to set or
follow the example; but then this would confine the pretension to a small
number, (not the most fashionable part of the community), and would carry a
very singular air with it. Or if excellence in any art or science were made the
standard of fashion, this would also effectually prevent vulgar imitation, but
then it would equally prevent fashionable impertinence. There would be an
obscure circle of virtù as well as virtue, drawn within the
established circle of fashion, a little province of a mighty empire;—the
example of honesty would spread slowly, and learning would still have to boast
of a respectable minority. But of what use would such uncourtly and
out-of-the-way accomplishments be to the great and noble, the rich and the
fair, without any of the eclat, the noise and
nonsense which belong to that which is followed and admired by all the world
alike? The real and solid will never do for the current coin, the common wear
and tear of foppery, and fashion. It must be the meretricious, the showy, the
outwardly fine, and intrinsically worthless—that which lies within the reach of
the most indolent affectation, that which can be put on or off at the
suggestion of the most wilful caprice, and for which, through all its
fluctuations, no mortal reason can be given, but that it is the newest
absurdity in vogue! The shape of a head-dress, whether flat or piled (curl on
curl) several stories high by the help of pins and pomatum, the size of a pair
of paste buckles, the quantity of gold-lace on an embroidered waistcoat, the
mode of taking a pinch of snuff, or of pulling out a pocket handkerchief, the
lisping and affected pronunciation of certain words, the saying Me’m
for
Madam, Lord Foppington’s Tam and ’Paun honour,
with a regular set of visiting phrases and insipid sentiments ready sorted for
the day, were what formerly distinguished the mob of fine gentlemen and ladies
from the mob of their inferiors. These marks and appendages of gentility had
their day, and were then discarded for others equally peremptory and
unequivocal. But in all this chopping and changing, it is generally one folly
that drives out another; one trifle that by its specific levity acquires a
momentary and surprising ascendency over the last. There is no striking
deformity of appearance or behaviour that has not been made ‘the sign of an
inward and invisible grace.’ Accidental imperfections are laid hold of to hide
real defects. Paint, patches, and powder, were at one time synonymous with health,
cleanliness, and beauty. Obscenity, irreligion, small oaths, tippling, gaming,
effeminacy in the one sex and Amazon airs in the other, any thing is the
fashion while it lasts. In the reign of Charles II, the profession and practice
of every species of extravagance and debauchery were looked upon as the
indispensable marks of an accomplished cavalier. Since that period the court
has reformed, and hat had rather a rustic air. Our belles formerly overloaded
themselves with dress: of late years, they have affected to go almost
naked,—‘and are, when unadorned, adorned the most.’ The women having left off
stays, the men have taken to wear them, if we are to believe the authentic
Memoirs of the Fudge Family. The Niobe head is at present buried in the poke
bonnet, and the French milliners and marchands des modes
have proved themselves an overmatch for the Greek sculptors, in matters of
taste and costume. A very striking change has, however, taken place in dregs of late years, and some progress has been made in taste and elegance, from the very circumstance, that, as fashion has extended its empire in that direction, it has lost its power. While fashion in dress included what was costly, it was confined to the wealthier classes : even this was an encroachment on the privileges of rank and birth, which for a long time were the only things that commanded or pretended to command respect, and we find Shakespear complaining that ‘the city madam bears the cost of princes on unworthy shoulders;’ but, when the appearing in the top of the mode no longer depended on the power of purchasing certain expensive articles of dress, or the right of wearing them, the rest was so obvious and easy, that any one who chose might cut as coxcombical a figure as the best. It became a matter of mere affectation on the one side, and gradually ceased to be made a matter of aristocratic assumption on the other. ‘In the grand carnival of this our age,’ among other changes this is not the least remarkable, that the monstrous pretensions to distinctions in dress have dwindled away by tacit consent, and the simplest and most graceful have been in the same request with all classes. In this respect, as well as some others, ‘the age is grown so picked, the peasant’s toe comes so near the courtier’s heel, it galls his kibe;’ a lord is hardly to be distinguished in the street from an attorney’s clerk; and a plume of feathers is no longer mistaken for the highest distinction in the land! The ideas of natural equality and the Manchester steam-engines together have, like a double battery, levelled the high towers and artificial structures of fashion in dress, and a white muslin gown is now the common costume of the mistress and the maid, instead of their wearing, as heretofore, rich silks and satins or coarse linsey-wolsey. It would be ridiculous (on a similar principle) for the courtier to take the wall of the citizen, without having a sword by his side to maintain his right of precedence; and, from the stricter notions that have prevailed of a man’s personal merit and identity, a cane dangling from his arm is the greatest extension of his figure that can be allowed to the modern petit-maitre.
What shews the worthlessness of mere fashion is, to see how easily this vain and boasted distinction is assumed, when the restraints of decency or circumstances are once removed, by the most uninformed and commonest of the people. I know an undertaker that is the greatest prig in the streets of London, and an Aldermanbury haberdasher, that has the most military strut of any lounger in Bond-street or St. James’s. We may, at any time, raise a regiment of fops from the same number of fools, who have vanity enough to be intoxicated with the smartness of their appearance, and not sense enough to be ashamed of themselves. Every one remembers the story in Peregrine Pickle, of the strolling gipsy that he picked up in spite, had well scoured, and introduced her into genteel company, where she met with great applause, till she got into a passion by seeing a fine lady cheat at cards, rapped out a volley of oaths, and let nature get the better of art. Dress is the great secret of address. Clothes and confidence will set anybody up in the trade of modish accomplishment. Look at the two classes of well-dressed females whom we see at the play-house, in the boxes. Both are equally dressed in the height of the fashion, both are rouged, and wear their neck and arms bare,—both have the same conscious, haughty, theatrical air;—the same toss of the head, the same stoop in the shoulders, with all the grace that arises from a perfect freedom from embarrassment, and all the fascination that arises from a systematic disdain of formal prudery,—the same pretence and jargon of fashionable conversation,—the same mimicry of tones and phrases,—the same ‘ lisping, and ambling, and painting, and nicknaming of Heaven’s creatures;’ the same every thing but real propriety of behaviour, and real refinement of sentiment. In all the externals, they are as like as the reflection in the looking-glass. The only difference between the woman of fashion and the woman of pleasure is, that the one is what the other only seems to be; and yet, the victims of dissipation who thus rival and almost outshine women of the first quality in all the blaze, and pride, and glitter of shew and fashion, are, in general, no better than a set of raw, uneducated, inexperienced country girls, or awkward, coarse-fisted servant maids, who require no other apprenticeship or qualification to be on a level with persons of the highest distinction in society, in all the brilliancy and elegance of outward appearance, than that they have forfeited its common privileges, and every title to respect in reality. The truth is, that real virtue, beauty, or understanding, are the same, whether ‘in a high or low degree;’ and the airs and graces of pretended superiority over these which the highest classes give themselves, from mere frivolous and external accomplishments, are easily imitated, with provoking success, by the lowest, whenever they dare.
The two nearest things in the world are gentility and vulgarity—
And thin partitions do their bounds divide.
Where
there is much affectation of the one, we may be always sure of meeting with a
double share of the other. Those who are conscious to themselves of any real
superiority or refinement, are not particularly jealous of the adventitious
marks of it. Miss Burney’s novels all turn upon this slender distinction. It is
the only thing that can be said against them. It is hard to say which she has
made out to be the worst; low people always aping gentility, or people in high
life always avoiding vulgarity. Mr. Smith and the Brangtons were everlastingly
trying to do as their fashionable acquaintances did, and these again were
always endeavouring not to do and say what Mr. Smith and the
Brangtons did or said. What an instructive game at cross-purposes! ‘Kings are
naturally lovers of low company,’ according to the observation of Mr. Burke ;
because their rank cannot be called into question by it, and they can only hope
to find, in the opposite extreme of natural and artificial inequality, any
thing to confirm them in the belief, that their personal pretensions at all
answer to the ostensible superiority to which they are raised. By associating
only with the worst and weakest, they persuade themselves that they are the
best and wisest of mankind. William Hazlitt (10 April 1778 – 18 September 1830) was an English writer, remembered for his humanistic essays and literary criticism, and as a grammarian and philosopher. He is now considered one of the great critics and essayists of the English language,[1][2] placed in the company of Samuel Johnson and George Orwell,[3][4] but his work is currently little-read and mostly out of print.[5][6] During his lifetime he befriended many people who are now part of the 19th-century literary canon, including Charles and Mary Lamb, Stendhal, Samuel Taylor Coleridge and William Wordsworth.
Background
Hazlitt's father's family were Irish Protestants
who moved from the
Childhood
William, the
youngest of the surviving Hazlitt children, was born in Mitre Lane Maidstone ,
in 1778. In
1780, when he was two, his family began a migratory existence that was to last
several years. From Maidstone his father took them to Bandon, County Cork, Ireland ;
and from Bandon in 1783 to the United
States, where Mr. Hazlitt preached, lectured, and founded the First Unitarian
Church at Boston. In 1786–87
the family returned to England
and lived at Wem, in Shropshire.
William would remember little of his years in America
Education
Hazlitt was educated at home and
at a local school until 1793, when his father sent him to a Unitarian seminary
on what was then the outskirts of London, the The curriculum at Hackney included a grounding in the Greek and Latin classics, mathematics, and, of course, religion. Much of this was traditional; however, the tutelage having been strongly influenced by eminent Dissenting thinkers of the day like Richard Price and Joseph Priestley,[12] there was also much that was nonconformist. Priestley, whom Hazlitt had read and who was also one of his teachers, was an impassioned commentator on political issues of the day. This, along with the turmoil in the wake of the French Revolution, sparked in Hazlitt and his classmates lively debates on these issues, as they saw their world being transformed around them.[13]
Changes were taking place within the young Hazlitt as well. While, out of respect for his father, Hazlitt never openly broke with his religion, he suffered a loss of faith, and left Hackney before completing his preparation for the ministry.[14]
Although he rejected the Unitarian theology,[15] Hazlitt's time at Hackney left him with much more than religious skepticism. He had read widely and formed habits of independent thought and respect for the truth that remained with him for life.[16] He had thoroughly absorbed a belief in liberty and the rights of man, and of the mind as an active force which, by disseminating knowledge, through both the sciences and the arts, could reinforce the natural tendency in humanity toward the good. He had had impressed upon him the ability of the individual, working both alone and within a mutually supportive community, to effect beneficial change by adhering to strongly held principles. The belief of many Unitarian thinkers in the natural disinterestedness of the human mind had also laid a foundation for the young Hazlitt's own philosophical explorations along those lines. And, though harsh experience and disillusionment later compelled him to qualify some of his early ideas about human nature, he was left with a hatred of tyranny and persecution that he retained to his last days.[17]
Last
years
Few details remain of Hazlitt's daily
life in his last years.[185] Much of his time was spent by
choice in the bucolic setting of Winterslow. But he needed to be in In 1828, Hazlitt found work reviewing for the theatre again (for The Examiner). In playgoing he found one of his greatest consolations. One of his most notable essays, "The Free Admission", arose from this experience.[187] As he explained there, attending the theatre was not merely a great solace in itself; the atmosphere was conducive to contemplating the past, not just memories of the plays themselves or his reviewing of past performances, but the course of his whole life. In words written within his last few months, the possessor of a free admission to the theatre, "ensconced in his favourite niche, looking from the 'loop-holes of retreat' in the second circle ... views the pageant of the world played before him; melts down years to moments; sees human life, like a gaudy shadow, glance across the stage; and here tastes of all earth's bliss, the sweet without the bitter, the honey without the sting, and plucks ambrosial fruits and amaranthine flowers (placed by the enchantress Fancy within his reach,) without having to pay a tax for it at the time, or repenting of it afterwards."[188]
He found some time to return to his earlier philosophical pursuits, including popularized presentations of the thoughts expressed in earlier writings. Some of these, such as meditations on "Common Sense", "Originality", "The Ideal", "Envy", and "Prejudice", appeared in The Atlas in early 1830.[189] At some point in this period he summarized the spirit and method of his life's work as a philosopher, which he had never ceased to consider himself to be; but "The Spirit of Philosophy" was not published in his lifetime.[190] He also began contributing once again to The Edinburgh Review; paying better than the other journals, it helped stave off hunger.[191]
After a brief stay on
Such respites from pain did not last. Though a few visitors cheered these days, toward the end he was frequently too sick to see any of them.[198] By September 1830, Hazlitt was confined to his bed, with his son in attendance, his pain so acute that his doctor kept him drugged on opium much of the time.[199] His last few days were spent in delirium, obsessed with some woman, which in later years gave rise to speculation: was it Sarah Walker? Or was it, as biographer Stanley Jones believes, more likely to have been a woman he had met more recently at the theatre?[200] Finally, with his son and a few others in attendance, he died on Sepetember 18. His last words were reported to have been "Well, I've had a happy life".[201]
William Hazlitt
was buried in the churchyard of St Anne's Church, Soho in London
