MARK TWAIN ON WOMEN.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume X, Issue 13, 1 April 1893, Page 303

MARK TWAIN ON WOMEN.

At a public dinner Mark Twain was selected to return thanks for the toast of ‘ The Ladies.’ Said he, * Let us consider woman’s-ways. Her first is dress. In this there are two marked antipodal types—the savage and the cultivated daughter of high modern civilization. Among the Fans, a great negro tribe, a woman, when dressed for home, shopping, or for calling, wears nothing, but—her complexion. It is the legitimate costume, and its material is of the darkest. It has often been mistaken for mourning. It wears well, and it does not show the dirt; you need not send it to the wash to have it charged for, torn, or exchanged for other people’s things. It always fits well, and is always done up. When you visit one of those Fan ladies and send up your card, her maid never says, “ Please take a seat, sir, my mistress is dressing, and will be down in three-quarters of an hour or more.” No, she is always dressed and ready for company. The Fan ladies don’t go to church to see what bonnets other ladies have got on, and, on their return home, describe and criticise them. On state occasions, though, they are more dressy—wear bracelets, earrings, and a belt, also stockings, but, with true feminine fondness of display, upon their arms. At funerals they put on a jacket of tar and ashes; and at their weddings the bride significantly slips into trousers. There the daik child of savagery and the fair one of civilisation meet upon common ground. “ One touch of nature makes the whole world kin.” Now, we will consider the dress of the other type. A large part of the daughter of civilisation is her dress. Some women would lose half their charm without dress, and some would lose the whole of it. The daughter of modern civilisation, dressed at her utmost, is a marvel of exquisite and beautiful art and—expense. All lands, climes, and art are laid under tribute to furnish her forth.’ (Here the witty satirist went into details as to where her different articles of toilet come from.) Then he continued : ‘Her hair—from—from — from—l do not know where her hair comes from. I never could find out—that is, her Sunday hair ; I do not mean the hair she goes to bed with ; it is that hair she twists and coils round her head, and harpoons with a hairpin. Well, you see what the daughter of civilisation is when she is dressed, and what the daughter of savagery is when she hn’t. Such is woman as to her costume I