It took courage, too, then: the youth who wore down
town even a garden flower in his button-hole was liable to be suspected
of a lack of purpose. One got very little encouragement at the best in
any effort to fly in the face of the perpetual black tie and black
broadcloth frock-coat of the plain American citizen, and he who chose
not to wear the garb of the Republic not merely cut himself off from
the possibility of ever becoming President, but ran the risk of being
refused employment of any kind. Naturally, therefore, I began after I
was married to do pretty much as the rest of my fellow-citizens did,
save in the matter of a dress-coat at dinner, which I continued to don
daily out of respect to Josephine's feelings. (This has been one of
the few points in my behavior upon which she has ever laid particular
stress, and I thank her here publicly for her pertinacity. It has
saved me from the slough of utter carelessness.) Barring the single
blue necktie and the pajamas, I drifted into and have stuck to blacks
and browns and the least ostentatious cuts until my own wife and
children have felt called upon to proclaim me fusty.
To tell the truth, I had been more or less conscious for some time of
my degeneration in this respect, but it is no easy matter to escape
from a rut when one is middle-aged.
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