William Barry Lord

“ It is so much the fashion among medical men to cry down tight-lacing that advocates are very daring who venture to uphold the practice. It has ever been in vogue among our sex, and will, I maintain, always continue so long as elegant figures are admired, for the wearing of corsets produces a grace and slenderness which nature never gives, and if the corset is discontinued or relaxed, the figure at once becomes stout and loose. The dress fits better over a close-laced corset, and the fullness of the skirts, and ease of its folds, are greatly enhanced by the slenderness of the waist. ”

“ Now, madam, as a part of the present whole of modern dress, every one must admit that a slender waist is a great acquisition, and from my own experience and the experience of several young lady friends similarly addicted to guide me, I beg to pronounce the so-called evils of tight-lacing to be a mere bugbear and so much cant. Every woman has the remedy in her own hands. If she feels the practice to be an injury to her, she can but discontinue it at any time. ”

“ Why should we, who have been disciplined at home and at school, and laced tighter and tighter month after month, until our waists have become 'small by degrees and beautifully less,' be expected to hide our figures (which we know are admired) under such atrocious drapery? My stay and dress maker both tell me that it is only the ill-formed and waistless ones that have taken to the fashion; such, of course, are well pleased, and will have no objection to have their waistbands as high as their armpits. ”

“ Women of quality inclosed their hair with a band of gold, from which a flower drooped over the forehead, while the hair fell in long plaits to the bosom, and behind streamed down the back to the waist. ”

“ It is the custom with some authors to uphold the claims of nature in matters relating to human elegance, and we admit that nature in her own way is particularly charming, so long as the accessories and surroundings are in unison. But in the human heart everywhere dwells an innate love of adornment, and untaught savages, in their toilet appliances and tastes, closely resemble the belles of highly-civilised communities. We have already referred to the crinoline petticoats worn by the Tahitian girls when they were first seen by the early navigators. ”

“ As you have given your readers the benefit of Another Correspondent's excellent letter will you kindly allow another member of the sterner sex to give his opinion on the subject of small waists? Those who have endeavoured to abolish this most becoming fashion have not hesitated to declare that gentlemen do not care for a slender figure, but that, on the contrary, their only feeling on beholding a waist of eighteen inches is one of pity and contempt. Now so far from this being the case, there is not one gentleman in a thousand who is not charmed with the sight. ”

“ What, perhaps, caught my fancy most was the sight of elegantly-dressed young ladies, with pearl-like necks and tight-laced waists; nothing can possibly be so enchanting as to see ladies that compress themselves into taper forms of the most exquisite shape, the like of which I have never seen before. ”

“ The truth is, there are always a number of fussy middle-aged people who (with the best intentions, no doubt) are always abusing some article of female dress. The best of it is, these benevolent individuals are usually of that sex whose costume precludes them from making a personal trial of the articles they condemn. Now it is the crinoline which draws forth their indignant outcries, now the corset, and now the chignon. ”

“ No one, we apprehend, would be likely to deny that, to enable the fairer portion of the civilised human race to follow the time-honoured custom of presenting to the eye the waist in its most slender proportions, the Corset in some form must be had recourse to. Our information will show how ancient and almost universal its use has been, and there is no reason to anticipate that its aid will ever be dispensed with so long as an elegant and attractive figure is an object worth achieving. ”

“ Some fifteen or twenty years ago, I recollect the word 'stays' was uttered as though a certain amount of disgrace attached to the wearer, and 'tight-lacing' was looked on as a crime; but I am glad to see that a reaction is setting in, and that ladies are not afraid to state openly that 'they lace very tightly,' and many of them declare the sensation of being laced as tightly as possible as positively a pleasurable one. ”

“ I shall keep my waist where nature has placed it, and where art has improved it, for my own comfort, and because a certain friend has said that he never could survive if it were any larger or shorter. ”

“ I know that it has been so long the habit of public journals to take their example from medical men (who, I contend, are not the best judges in the matter) in running down the corset, and the very legitimate, and, if properly employed, harmless mode of giving a graceful slenderness to the figure, that I can hardly expect that at present you will have courage to take the part of the ladies. But I beg you to be so kind as to tell me what you know of the state of the fashion as regards the length and size of the waist, and whether my waist would be considered small. ”

“ If the various organs are prevented from taking a certain form or direction, they will accommodate themselves to any other with perfect ease. Nothing is broken or interfered with in its action. I will, of course, allow that if a fully-grown woman were to attempt to reduce her waist suddenly, respiration and digestion would be stopped; but it is rarely, if ever, that a lady arrives at maturity before she has imbibed sufficient notions of elegance and propriety to induce her to conform to this becoming fashion to some extent. ”

“ I know many who take as much pleasure in reading them as myself, for the subject is one on which both [166] health and beauty greatly depend. All who visited the picture-gallery in the Exhibition of 1862 must have seen an exquisitely-painted portrait of the beautiful Empress of Austria, and though it did not show the waist in the most favourable position, some idea may be formed of its elegant slenderness and easy grace. Many were the remarks made upon it by all classes of critics while I seated myself opposite the picture for a few minutes. ”

“ Until fashion, in its ever-changing round, returns to the costume of Ancient Greece or Rome, we can never expect to persuade ladies not to compress their waists merely on the score of beauty; and as several of your correspondents have shown that a moderate compression is not so injurious as some supposed, there is no chance of the corset becoming an obsolete article of female dress. It has been in use for seven or eight hundred years, and now that its form and construction are so much modified and improved, there need be no longer an outcry against it ”

“ On the conquest of the Roman Empire by the wild and savage Hunnish tribes, fashion, art, taste, literature, and civilisation were swept ruthlessly away, and a long, weird night of mental darkness may be said to have reigned throughout the land from the tenth to the middle of the fifteenth century, and we see little or nothing of Roman elegance or magnificence of dress to distinguish it above other nations from that period. ”

“ Those who advocate the use of the corset as being indispensable to the female toilet have much reason on their side when they insist that these temporary freaks of fancy for loose and careless attire only call for infinitely more rigid and severe constriction after they (as they invariably have done) pass away, than if the regular training of the figure had been systematically carried out by the aid of corsets of ordinary power. In a period certainly not much over thirty years, the old-established standard of elegance, "the span," was again established for waist measurement. ”

“ It is scarcely to be supposed that any lady of the present day possesses such an absurdly small waist as thirteen inches, but I am certain that not a few could be found whose waistband does not exceed fifteen inches and three-quarters or sixteen inches. Much depends on the height and width of the shoulders; narrow shoulders generally admit of a small waist, and many tall women are naturally so slender as to be able to show a small waist with very little lacing. It is needless to remark how much depends on the corset. ”

“ Much ill-deserved blame has been from time to time cast on the lady principals of fashionable schools for insisting on the strict use of the corset by the young ladies in their charge. The following letter from a schoolmistress of great experience, and another from a young lady who has finished her education at a fashionable boarding-school, will at once serve to show that the measures adopted by the heads of these establishments for the obtainment of elegant figures are in the end fully appreciated by those who have been fortunate enough to profit by them. ”