Glove

“ To the simple prototype of four fingers, thumb, palm, back and wrist, the glove-makers of our time have added all that makes the present glove elegant beyond any which has preceded it. Here we have, perhaps, the most interesting article of personal apparel regardless of the wearer’s sex. For a glove is a glove, whether it graces a woman’s slender hand or a man’s stouter member. ”

“ If we would gain some notion of the part glove-making actually played in the lives of these people, and the status of the glove-craft as it first appeared in mediæval Europe, we have only to journey in imagination to Grenoble in the middle of the seventeenth century, on the occasion of the great annual festival of the glovers. ”

“ But the great feature of the day is the pageant of the glovers, in which each master, with his apprentices and family, has his special part. This takes the form of a procession of carnival vans, or floats, drawn by gorgeously caparisoned horses, and followed by crowds of young apprentices and workmen and workmaidens on foot, who enact in pantomime the various processes of glove-making as it was practiced in mediæval days. Beautiful kids and chamois from the mountains, wreathed with blossoms as though for sacrifice, are led by troops of peasant garçons in blue smocks. ”

“ The Glove is worthy of entering into the legend of a fairy tale, and remaining there always, as the slipper has entered into the poetry even of fable, with the theme of Cinderella. An ancient King of France was indeed in love all his life with an unknown woman, only from having seen her Glove in the midst of a masked ball given to his court. ”

“ The history of Gauntlets and of military Gloves from the time of the Middle Ages would make a mighty volume, like the ladies’ Glove and the work-people’s Mitten. The liturgical Glove, yet more important, is of three kinds: the pontifical Glove, which was worn by bishops and abbés; the Glove which simple priests had adopted for particular occasions; and lastly, the prelatic Glove. ”

“ If the foregoing description of the gloves of the hour may have seemed redundant, or of too ephemeral interest, to the reader, let him pause and reflect that, after all, we are ourselves makers of glove history; and it may be that glove lovers of the future will be as grateful to find on record the gloves of our times, as we have been gratified to rediscover the glove annals of remote periods of human history. ”

“ I am sure I should be very sorry to have my lovers go about picking up my gloves. I don't have them a week before they change color; the thumb gapes at its base, the little finger rips away from the next one, and they all burst out at the ends; a stitch drops in the back and slides down to the wrist before you know it has started. You can mend, to be sure, but for every darn yawn twenty holes. I admire a dainty glove as much any one. I look with enthusiasm not unmingled with despair at these gloves of romance; but such things do not depend entirely upon taste, as male writers seem to think. ”

“ Gloves have deeply affected the lives of human beings from the very earliest periods. They have descended 5to us from a remote antiquity, and are in very fact our inherited title to nobility, for they were bequeathed to us by the princely prelates, the kings and over-lords of the past, whose chief insignia and most treasured badge of honor was the glove. To comprehend all that they have brought with them down through the centuries we must retrace a vast deal of history, and let our imaginations play over scenes and customs far removed from our own day. ”

“ The glove, therefore, was the king's glove, the earliest form of royal charter, the original sign-manual. Among other items of folk-lore connected with this useful article of dress, we may mention that the term "right as my glove" is a phrase, according to Sir Walter Scott, derived from the practice of pledging the glove as the sign of irrefragable faith. Gloves, too, were in olden times fashionable new year's gifts, having been far more expensive than now-a-days. ”

“ If the prevailing fashion be to reject the long sleeve, and to partially display the arm, let the glove advance considerably above the elbow, and there be fastened with a drawing-string, or armlet. But this should only be the case when the arm is muscular, coarse, or scraggy. When it is fair, smooth, and round, it will admit of the glove being pushed down to a little above the wrists. ”

“ But, as we have seen, the ancients seem to have attached less allegorical significance to gloves and to have regarded them more as a personal luxury. In the Orient, however, as the Bible shows, challenge by the glove was a recognized institution. Also, in the sales of lands, the 19purchaser was given a glove to symbolize delivery or investiture—of which the passage from Ruth which heads the previous chapter is, probably, the most famous instance. From the Oriental custom Mediæval Europe derived the challenge, so picturesquely employed in history and in literature. ”

“ It is pleasant to wear a glove when one shakes hands with the Public; therefore we still use our ancestors' names instead of our own,—but it is fair to state, that in this case there are a pair of gloves!—Which is the right glove, and which the left, the Public will never know. ”

“ GLOVES OF THE HOUR An interesting modern development in glove making, and one which undoubtedly has come to stay, is the vogue of the silk glove whose popularity has grown to surprising proportions. Oddly enough, the first gloves to be introduced into Europe for women in the thirteenth century were made of linen, and were of very simple design. ”

“ The question of black gloves is one which troubles all who are obliged to wear mourning through the heat of summer. The black kid glove is painfully warm and smutty, disfiguring the hand and soiling the handkerchief and face. The Swedish kid glove is now much more in vogue, and the silk glove is made with such neatness and with such a number of buttons that it is equally stylish, and much cooler and more agreeable. ”

“ You should not, however, offer a gloved hand to a lady or a superior who is ungloved. Foreigners are sometimes very sensitive in this matter, and might deem the glove an insult. It is well for a gentleman to carry his right-hand glove in his hand where he is likely to have occasion to shake hands. At a ball or a party the gloves should not be taken off. ”

“ That which I have not been able to accomplish, that which you have not demanded of me, that which nevertheless would have interested you far more than this sleepy talk, is the Physiology of the Glove, with this epigraph taken from an anonymous but witty author—“The style is the man; the Glove is the woman; the style sometimes deceives, but the Glove never.” ”

“ Fig. 92.—A modern kid glove showing the fourchettes or pieces between the fingers, which form three pointed V’s.
Fig. 93.—Queen Elizabeth’s coronation glove showing the stitching carried down on to the back. (From a photograph by the courtesy of Messrs. Fownes Brothers and Co.)
A third suggestion which may occur, is that the ornamentation is a survival from the time when great men, particularly prelates, had various devices and even jewels fixed to the back of their gloves. Once more, however, we meet with the difficulty in the shape of the point that there are always three of the marks. ”

“ To this single line of merchandise nearly every country in the world contributes to-day; not merely in the historical sense, in which we have watched the glove evolve through the centuries, but also in point of materials and processes actually used. ”

“ The high-arched, French-heeled, parti-colored footgear which to-day is patronized by the feminine species has little in common with the broad-built, low-last article in which the male walks comfortably about his business. The tradition of the glove, however, is less erratic, and equally applicable to man or woman. ”

“ Sometimes I have pinned a shabby old leather and fur gauntlet to a board, and the painting has been surprisingly good. And yet had I suggested the drawing of a hand a wail of despair would have gone up. A glove is a step toward the drawing of a hand. ”

“ Particularly in warm weather the fabric glove, or the silk glove, almost puts out of business the leather glove, which seems heavy, overheating, unsanitary, and entirely out of keeping both with the light costume and the altered mood of the wearer. As summer approaches, we naturally long to have everything about our persons fresh, easily renewable, dainty, light and cool to the touch. 109Leather and kid repell us for ordinary wear. Only the finest and thinnest of kid dress gloves find a favored place in the summer wardrobe ”

“ The removal of the glove was practiced between men also at a later date, when, too often, beneath the heavily embroidered gauntlet, lurked the assassin's dagger, so that to unglove before a hand-clasp grew to be considered an act of good faith. ”

“ In offering the hand to a friend in the house, always remove the glove, and grasp the hand given in return firmly for a moment. In the street, however, the glove may be retained, if it would cause an awkward pause to remove it ”

“ In the glove trade men talk of “cape,” “suede,” “doeskin,” “lambskin,” “kid”—nor is the meaning of each of these nearly so obvious, nor so simple, as would casually appear. If, in every case, the name were properly applied to skins which came from a distinct type of animal, grown in one particular district, whose hide was tanned into leather by its own peculiar process, then the quality and character of each kind of leather would be practically uniform. ”

“ For thirty years I have devoted myself to the practical problems of the glove industry, and my connection with one of the substantial firms of master-merchant-glovers in the world has taught me how little gloves are known or appreciated by the millions of persons who buy them and wear them. ”

“ He must get so many pieces of glove size from each skin, and suit the pieces to particular features of the skin. When done with a skin he must have left, as useless, only trifling strips and shreds. The shapeliness of the glove which a woman draws over her hand, depends altogether upon the intelligence and skill of the cutter. In American factories the cutter is usually from some glove-making center in Europe and from a family whose occupation has been glove making for centuries. ”

“ A good glove will outlast six cheap ones with care. Do not wear your best gloves at night, the heat of the gas, &c., gives a moisture to the hands, that spoils the gloves; do not wear them in very wet weather ”

“ The pretty Glove-seller coquets with the stranger, shows herself extremely complaisant, and the sentimental traveller, to prove his gratitude for her kindness, asks for some Gloves, and tries on several pairs without finding one to suit him. ”

“ The title of The Man with the Glove is appropriate in emphasizing an important feature of the costume. In the days of this portrait, gloves were worn only by persons of wealth and distinction, and were a distinguishing mark of elegance. ”

“ Among the early English, the Anglo-Saxons, we find that ladies, before they knew the use of the glove, or applied their knowledge to its most convenient conclusion, had the ends of their mantles shaped into gloves, and these were worn over the hand, under the name of mufflers. Gloves were worn by females before the Reformation, despite what Gough says to the contrary. A dishonoured knight was deprived not only of his spurs, but of his gloves also. ”

“ If half a dozen strangers should throw each one his glove into a hat, and they were shaken up, she would take one glove, smell it, then smell the hand of each person, and unerringly assign each glove to its owner. ”

“ As some ladies have had but small confidence in these Gloves, till they have been prevailed upon to wear one Glove for eight or ten Nights, [203] when they have evidently seen to their agreeable satisfaction that hand and arm brought to such a superior degree of whiteness over the other, as though they did not belong to the same Person. ”

“ For the inexperienced, a padded glove is necessary for the protection of the left thumb, and there is also a peculiar knack in so holding the bow that that arm shall be the merest trifle out of the line of flight of the pellet. ”

“ According to the present use the gloves are of silk and of the liturgical colour of the day, the edge of the opening ornamented with a narrow band of embroidery or the like, and the middle of the back with a cross. They may be worn only at the celebration of mass (except masses for the dead) . In vesting, the gloves are put on the bishop immediately after the dalmatic, the right hand one by the deacon, the other by the subdeacon. They are worn only until the ablution before the canon of the mass, after which they may not again be put on. ”

“ They show men who’ve been crucified with the torture of the ‘human glove.’ The victim gets crucified, nails through his elbows. The hands are treated with a solution which shrivels the skin. The skin is cut out with a razor, round the wrist, and peeled off, till it hangs by the finger nails—the ‘human glove.’ I’m not sparing you. ”

“ Up to the age of Louis XIV., the skin Glove was destined rather for the use of men, and it was only under this Prince that Gloves mounting a long way up the arm, and long Mittens of silk netting to set off the hands of women, were generally adopted by them. ”

“ But, most people appreciate a good glove, and it is such an article of approved excellence, that we desire to direct the attention of the glove-wearing visitors to the section of the Bohemian gloves exporters in the Austrian exhibition at Earl’s Court. ”