What's Afoot? Shoes, Silly.

Time was when buying a pair of shoes was a delicious experience. A clerk in a shoe shop could expect to be treated as a respectable white-collar worker, an expert consultant, and an authority on quality. My childhood memories of being taken to buy shoes – walls lined to the ceiling with boxes, ladders on slides, metallic foot measures, shoe horns and the intoxicating smell of fresh leather – might as well be from the Edwardian period, and I cherish them. I’m not sure what happened to that kind of shoe shop, but it disappeared at some point in the 1980s and was replaced by something entirely tasteless, the quality and the knowledgeable salesman with it.

Now one has to work hard to find, and probably pay a fortune to own, decent shoes. And by decent shoes I want immediately to discriminate against designer shoes made by labels not fundamentally known for making shoes. Cobblers to them! I balk at shoes that cost a fortune but which come with no obvious assurances of quality manufacture. One wouldn’t buy a watch made by Armani, and shoes are no less objects of artisanal craftsmanship. In addition, shoes used to be made in different widths. If you’re anything but average, you probably have a hard time finding shoes that properly fit. You have my sympathies.

Providing you have struck it lucky and found the ideal shoes, I’m afraid I have bad news. You now need to strike it lucky another four times. Yes, a gentleman needs five pairs of shoes. Any fewer and you will wear them out too fast, and be inadequately prepared for all occasions. As a minimum, I would suggest Oxford or Derby shoes in black and brown, for everyday wear; dress shoes for best (one should relish the chance to wear patent leather); penny loafers for lazy Sundays; and either brogues or boots for gadding about in the country (or lounging around in cafes, depending on the way you ride). Of course, there are a million options besides, but I find it hard to imagine not having at least this much in my arsenal. Of course, winter wellies are a necessary extra, and a difficult one to boot.

Pictured, with apologies for quality, are my Derby browns by Gruppo Forall, Bruno Magli Oxfords, dress shoes by Moreschi, and John Fluevog boots. Suede loafers are away for winter, but I’ll update in the future.

The Manly Mind; or, Sex on the Brain

Forgive me for presuming to thrust upon you some thoughts on an ongoing academic project of mine. I have mounted the task of revisiting the Victorian debate on the inherent sexual nature of the brain. I am not seeking to proselytise – far be it from me to assume the Missionary position – but simply to enlighten. Historiographical orthodoxies present themselves to be undressed, and it would be unmanly of me not to oblige them.

The Victorians were under the impression that women ought not to be educated for three simple reasons. First, female brains were thought to be universally smaller then male ones, based on some rather skewed statistical evidence. The brains of leading male intellects who died with healthy heads were compared to a motley collection of female brains pulled from the bodies of the insane, the infirm, and the indecent. Second, nature had fitted women to be the bearers of the stock of human instincts that were manifested in civilization, and it was a female duty, if not a privilege, to pass these on to the future of the race. In short, women were to be mothers. Third, this repository of human evolution was necessarily limited: women were presumed incapable of abstract or original thought; they were incapable, physiologically, of leading politically, artistically, technologically or philosophically. Those cognitive abilities were the preserve of men, who would in turn pass on their bold developments, stored up as newly acquired characteristics of the stock of human evolution in the next generation of mothers. The female mind was conservative; the manly mind was dynamic. The over-education of women was therefore useless, but moreover it risked damaging or distracting from their primary maternal purpose. All this was enshrined in Darwinian or neo-Lamarckian science, and as such has been justly called to book by feminist historians.

So far so good, but the story begs a question. If genuine worldly accomplishments were the sole remit of the manly mind, what did that say for the majority of men who in every respect failed to contribute any philosophical, artistic or technological advances, and who in most respects blindly followed, or ignored, their political leaders? On this, Victorian science had a lot less to say. With a total disregard for critical reasoning, scientists talked of the male and female mind as if all men were of the type of Socrates, Michelangelo, Brunel, or Pericles; as if all women were mere damsels in distress. If anyone had bothered to point this out, it would have been clear that the scientists’ portrayal of the gendered brain was practically worthless, for they surely would not have agreed that manliness was available only to the remarkable, only to the exceptional, only to genius. It cut against the grain of the majority of vernacular thinking on the meaning and definition of manliness, and yet it was held up by the new priesthood as the new law; or rather, the oldest law: that of nature.

We can rest assured, however, that if the Victorians were wrong about sex in the brain, they nevertheless had sex on the brain. Darwin himself was pushing fifty when he and Emma had their last child. The fact that nobody talked about it only added to its excitement. As I’ve said before, being buttoned-up only adds vigour to the unbuttoning.

Historical Heroes: Grantley Berkeley, 1800-81.

‘Who?’ you ask. Rightly so, for this was not a preeminent man. He was, however, a man who stood up for the preservation of bluff English tradition in the face of reforming sensibilities that to him just seemed all too bloody French. He was a living atavism; his life a lament more than a triumph. Yet the spirit of the times never conquered his own esprit de coeur. This was a man who recollected feeling manly from the age of six! I celebrate his life not by way of condoning his actions, but rather by way of advertising his strength of character.

Berkeley cut his teeth in the Regency period; he was what you might call a no-nonsense Renaissance man. Not averse to a bare-knuckle box (he was taught the arts of pugilism by Gentleman Jackson, who also taught Byron), he was at home in the study, at court, and in the company of ladies. As Member of Parliament for Gloucester in the Liberal interest, he backed tradition over innovation, stoicism over effete sensibility. As a writer of political broadsides, novels, and sporting adventures in the American wilds, in addition to his extensive autobiographical pomp, he was irreverently proud. He pursued options closed to us ethereal scribblers: upon receipt of an unfavourable review of his first novel in Fraser’s Magazine he beat the proprietor of that eminent journal with his hunting whip, and fought the reviewer in a duel. Hang the law for honour’s sake!

Berkeley’s chief love was cockfighting, unless it were hunting (he was Master of Fox Hounds and Stag Hounds). The latter was entirely seemly in his age, but the former was criminalised in Berkeley’s prime, causing consternation among those who fancied the sod. Berkeley decried the prohibition as ‘un-English’, and carried on regardless, remaining unapologetic even in the dock at Uxbridge Magistrate’s court.

Think what you will about his pursuits: chacun à son gout. His defining spirit, however, was one of fair play in all things. State interference in morality was absurd; a careless libel was unjust; the intervention into what he saw as fair sports was ‘improper’ and ‘underhand’. The Hon. Grantley Fitzhardinge Berkeley, MP, MFH knew with great self-assurance what it was to be a gentleman in all things.

Keep Your Trousers On, Ladies!

A little while ago, Rose C’est La Vie made mention on this site of her interest in female masculinity, and lamented the demise of trousers’ significance as symbols of feminine defiance. One of the lamentable things about throwing out all the rules is that it becomes much more difficult to act subversively. Absolute freedom might, so it seems, come at the price of being dull.

I’m not actually sure I buy that last thought, for complacency is the biggest risk to the freedoms attained. We must remain vigilant. Last night I saw some BBC News footage from Banda Aceh about the stiffening of Sharia Law in that unfortunate place. It is a story of gendered segregation, invidious policing, and a slew of strictures that prescribe what it is moral and immoral to wear. Naturally, the BBC took a left-leaning – or should that be Occidental – perspective, and sought out those brave womanly souls refusing to don headscarves, who cling desperately to long pants. Indeed, the new clamp down includes a ban on women wearing tight trousers. A bewildered trouser seller exclaimed: ‘what we wear doesn’t reflect our morality’. No, but in that setting trousers remain politically dangerous.

We are not given to think about these things any more, but that is a sign of how far we have come in the West. It is worth reminding ourselves from time to time that the matter-of-fact ubiquity of women in ‘men’s clothing’ is an emblem of our liberality. These things are matter-of-fact only after significant struggle; they represent other struggles of greater weight, about which we are also now dangerously blasé. Indeed, trouser wearing is the thin end of the wedge. That is precisely what the Aceh authorities are afraid of. And it is precisely why we should not cease to celebrate the history embodied by all women who don their slacks without a second thought.

Class Act

On my way home today I observed a street scene that might have come straight from the pages of Henry Mayhew. A somewhat dishevelled man wearing an eye patch was engaging in toothless japes with a hunched, walking-stick wielding man wearing rudimentary ear muffs. I expected to see a mudlark and a crossing sweeper at any minute, as our omnibus swerved to avoid the itinerant costermongers. But then I remembered that everyone in America is middle class. And then I thought of England, where society is supposed not to exist. Silly me.

In the introduction to Arthur Marwick’s The Sixties, the author reluctantly confessed that his education, the fact of his professorial status, had made him upper-middle class. Marwick assumed that the democratization of social opportunity had nevertheless left the old social framework intact, but following contours of intellect rather than wealth. His was a class system based on merit, but a class system nonetheless. His reality no doubt gave him good reason to think this, for he was among the first generation of modern levellers, and assumed a place that assuredly looked, felt, and smelled very much like the upper-middle class of yore. Yet the idea was becoming unpalatable. Those scholars who followed him might have expected to be ridiculed, if not stoned, for asserting their implicit social superiority, however reluctantly. In fact, they actively cast off the mantle and quickly swapped white for blue collars. Marks of distinction disappeared among the distinctly Marxian. Elitist aspirations, including those founded on intellect, became an outmoded embarrassment. Now we find it appropriate only to be ordinary – such an unpalatable collective – or else ‘public opinion’, like a Leviathan Bounderby, will point a chubby finger and accuse us of wanting to be fed turtle soup and venison with a gold spoon. Hard Times indeed. Intellectuals should know their place: a dark, underpaid corner of unimportance, diminutively apologizing for not being of the ‘real world’.

Actually, the haute cuisine and lustrous utensils sound rather appealing, taken metaphorically. The truth is that we still sort ourselves out, even though social deference is dead, and humility is an endangered species. As I sat watching the Victorian apparition today I knew that for all the world I was not of that scene, and to a like degree those characters were not of my intellectual commute. This does not signify any sense of entitlement on my part, nor any social chagrin on theirs; merely that worlds apart are not wont to meet. Were not these distinct orbits more inclined to overlap in days before our undoubtedly noble motives led us to deny that difference exists?

I pose the question sincerely: how does one be a gentleman in an age that looks poorly on distinction?