Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1874-07-30
The Absence of the Bonnet.

The name of the bonnet, we believe,
still survives for a acknowledgements
ornament of the hair; and it is possible
that, in the female mind, the subtle ways
of which are unSearchable, some kind of
historical unity with respect to the arti-
Gle has been kept up so that women may
still imagine that they wear bonnets
But, as men understand things, bonnets
have ceased to be. X is the most com
plete innovation of dress made for many
years. We are not at all setting up the
past against the present. The existing
female fashion is always in our judgment
the most charming; it is so for the reason
that it is the only one embellished by
actual wear. Not one of the old ones
has a single pair Of bright eyes or rosy
checks to recommend it. Besides, the
Celestials surely need not ask those to
whom they show themselves how they
are to appear. If male behOlders are
justified in any supplication of a critical
kind it is when they ask that women
should reveal not hide their faces; and
in leaving off the bonnet the sex has
gone to the full limit in that poiRt of
their attire. No woman in England now
conceals a single feature. Forehead,
cheeks, dimpled or undimpled chins, ear
UPS, dii at NISlDlt.
In speaking of the change of appear
ancc caused by the absence of the bon
net, we know better than to be critical:
we are dealing with it only as matter
of abstract speculation and respectful
Renaissance. First of all it undoubtedly
does away with striking difference
previously observed between the
indoor and outdoor look of women.
A f. Il
the wearer; in some cases the al
teration it made was ineXplicably great.
The change might not always be advan-
tageous, at times it was decidedly so !;
but in every case there was change of
some sort and degree. This is clean gone
Now we see women, indoors and out
doors, with just the same play of light
and shade upon the countenance; that is,
with all the light possible to fall upon it.
1t is true other parts of dress in the same
way are becoming modified. For some
seasons past feminine drapery has been
growing less and less ConCealing. Men
have never yet faced the streets with
wholly uncovered visage. The narrOwest
OF -brims has always cast a little mod
est shadow on the masculine features.
No doubt, the ladies will say the creature
Is bold TO show his face at all; but our
present topic is bonnets, and we must
keep to it,
What Is now Worn-We must not say
IN the place of the bonnet, but in part of
the place of the bonnet-is an eXagger-
ated ornament of the hair. The essen
tial characteristic of the bonnet is that it
modities the face; whatever variations
fashion takes it through, it must keep
some power of affecting the light and
shade on the features. So soon as what
is worn diminishes to degree which pre-
vents this, or is wholly removed from
vicinage to the countenance, the
male intellect, at any rate, re-
quires that it should take another
name. 1t has ceased to be a bonnet.
What is at present worn has no relation
to the facets obvious purpose is to dis
play the hair. This is not merely anoth-
er purpose; it is something contrary The
hair is characteristic female charm
which until recently it was a long-stand-
ing English custom not fully to display
1t was an indoor disclosure, greatly re-
strained there. Now good deal more
than every inch of ii is ostentatiously eX-
posed TO the public gaze. For that has
happened which a moments thought is
enough to show was inevitable The hair
is a charm in which women are very I'M
equally endowed; but ii is also one in
which deficiencies can be most easily rec
titled. Under the stimulus of the abid
ing purpose which every woman has to
be behind no other woman in what is adj
mired, all the sex now presents the same
incredible wealth of treSSes. This has
gone on till the ad0rnment of the head
has lost all natural character; it has be-
come an accepted and understood artifi-
ciaI construction. Faith, however, is a
much neglected duty, and here is fresh
opportunity for its cultivation. Men
ought always to make an effort to believe.
In any case this is the last proof possible
of the kindness of the sex; they now
publicly show men the whole Of their
faces and more than the whole of their
hair
The fashion has now been in existence
so long that there are women, no longer