DOI article:
Le Gallienne, Richard: Four prose fancies
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.27805#0322
Four Prose Fancies
3l8
^on as some traditional garment of the faith has become outworn
or otherwise unsuitable, and the proposal is made to dispense with
or substitute it, an outcry immediately is raised that religion
itself is in danger-—so with sex, no sooner does one or the other
sex propose to discard its arbitrary conventional characteristics,
or to supplement them by others borrowed from its fellow-sex,
than an outcry immediately is raised that sex itself is in danger.
Sex—the most potent force in the universe—in danger because
women wear knickerbockers instead of petticoats, or military men
take to corsets and cosmetics !
That parallel with religion may be pursued profitably one step
further. In religion, the test of your faith is not how you live>
not in your kindness of heart or purity of mind, but how you
believe—in the Trinity, in the Atonement; and do you turn to
the East during the recital of the Apostles’ Creed ? These and
such, as every one knows, are the vital matters of religion. And
it is even so with sex. You are not asked for the realities of
manliness or womanliness ; but for the shadows, the arbitrary
externalities, the fashion of which changes from generation to
generation.
To be truly womanly you must never wear your hair short;
to be truly manly you must never wear it long. To be truly
womanly you must dress as daintily as possible, however uncom-
fortably ; to be truly manly you must wear the most hideous
gear ever invented by the servility of tailors—a strange succession
of cylinders from head to heel ; cylinder on head, cylinder round
your body, cylinders on arms and cylinders on legs. To be truly
womanly you must be shrinking and clinging in manner and
trivial in conversation, you must have no ideas and rejoice that
you wish for none; you must thank Heaven that you have
never ridden a bicycle or smoked a cigarette ; and you must be
prepared
3l8
^on as some traditional garment of the faith has become outworn
or otherwise unsuitable, and the proposal is made to dispense with
or substitute it, an outcry immediately is raised that religion
itself is in danger-—so with sex, no sooner does one or the other
sex propose to discard its arbitrary conventional characteristics,
or to supplement them by others borrowed from its fellow-sex,
than an outcry immediately is raised that sex itself is in danger.
Sex—the most potent force in the universe—in danger because
women wear knickerbockers instead of petticoats, or military men
take to corsets and cosmetics !
That parallel with religion may be pursued profitably one step
further. In religion, the test of your faith is not how you live>
not in your kindness of heart or purity of mind, but how you
believe—in the Trinity, in the Atonement; and do you turn to
the East during the recital of the Apostles’ Creed ? These and
such, as every one knows, are the vital matters of religion. And
it is even so with sex. You are not asked for the realities of
manliness or womanliness ; but for the shadows, the arbitrary
externalities, the fashion of which changes from generation to
generation.
To be truly womanly you must never wear your hair short;
to be truly manly you must never wear it long. To be truly
womanly you must dress as daintily as possible, however uncom-
fortably ; to be truly manly you must wear the most hideous
gear ever invented by the servility of tailors—a strange succession
of cylinders from head to heel ; cylinder on head, cylinder round
your body, cylinders on arms and cylinders on legs. To be truly
womanly you must be shrinking and clinging in manner and
trivial in conversation, you must have no ideas and rejoice that
you wish for none; you must thank Heaven that you have
never ridden a bicycle or smoked a cigarette ; and you must be
prepared