AT THE TAILORS

To me the meanest flower that blows can give
Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears.
—Worthwords
即使最賤的花朵綻放，也能給我帶來沉思，
深埋心底，使我潸然淚下。

Between the chaos of Regent Street and the opulent bustle of New Bond Street is a little region that is curiously hushed. It is made up of short streets that pretend to run paralleled to one another, but actually go off at all angles. At a first glance these streets appear to be filled with the offices of very old firms of family solicitors. Many of their windows have severe wire screens. The establishments there have a certain air of dignified secrecy, not unlike that of servants of the old school, those impassive butlers who appeared to know nothing, but really knew everything. There is little evidence that anything is being sold in this part of the world. The electric - light bills must be very modest indeed, for there are no flashing signs to assault the eye, no gaudily dressed windows to tempt the feet to loiter. Whatever the season no Sales are held there. You are not invited to stop a moment longer than you may wish to do. Now and then you catch sight of a roll of cloth a pair of riding breeches, or, perhaps, a sobbed little drawing of a gentlemen in evening clothes, and as you pass you can hear these things whispering: “If you are a gentleman and wish to wear the clothes that a gentleman should wear, kindly make an appointment here and well see what we can do for you..” Money, of course, is not mentioned, this being impossible in all such gentlemanly transactions. For this is the region, Savile Row, Conduit Street, Maddox Street, and the rest , of the tailors or - rather - the tailors. Enter it wearing a cheap ready-made suit, and immediately the poor thing begins to bag in some places and shrivel up in others. If you have the these establishments wearing a ready-made suit, you will regret it. Noting is said, but a glance from one of the higher officials here strips you and quietly deposits your apparel in the dust-bin.

The hush here is significant. It might be described as old-world and for a very good reason., too. In a new world in which anything will do so long as it arrives quickly and easily, this region has fallen sadly behind the time . It is still engaged in the old quest for perfection. Behind these wire screens the search for the absolute still goes on. Tailoring here remains one of the arts. There are men in this quarter who could announce in all sincerity that trouser are Beauty, beauty trousers, and that is all we know and need to know. For them the smallest seam they sew can give thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears. That they are artists and not tradesmen is proved by the fact that, unlike tradesmen, they do not labour to please their customers, but to please themselves. A tailor who is a mere shopkeeper fits you until you are satisfied. These artists go on fitting you until they are satisfied, and that they continue long after have lost all interest in the matter. You stand there, amere body or lay figure and they still go on delicately ripping out sleeves, and collars with their little penknives, pinning and unpinning, and making mysterious signs with chalk, and you have long ceased to understand what all the bother is about. And even then they may thell you, quietly but firmly, that they must have another fitting. That they should do this to me is poof positive of their disinterested passion for the art of tailoring.

(Beauty is truth, truth beauty,This is all ye know on earth,and all ye need to know. —Keats)

I never walk into my own tailor’s without feeling apologetic. I know I am unworthy of their dfforts. Its is as if a man without an ear for music should be invited to spend an evening with the Lene Quartet. I an the kind of man who can make any suit of chothes liik shabby and undistinguished after about a fortnight’s wear. Perhaps the fact that I always carry about wuith me two ot tobacco, awallet, cheque-book, diary, fountain-pen, knife, odd keys, and loose change, to say nothing of lod letters, may have something ot do with it. I can never understad how a man can contrive to look neat and spruce and do anything else. Wering clothes properly seems to me to be a full-time job, and as I happen ot have a great many other, more important ot more amusing, things ot do, I cheerfully bag and sag and look as if I had slept in my suits. I can sy this cherfully here, but once I am inside my tailors’ I immediately begin to feel apologetic. They do not say anything, but there is mournful reproaxh in their syes as they turn them upon their runed sonnets and sonatas. One day I shallcall upon them in evening clothees because I fancy they are not so bad as the lounge suits. But I do not know; theymay see enormities where I se bothing; and so perhaps I had better koop the fate of their masterpieces hidden from them. Possibly they whisper ot one another, when they see me slouching in looking like a man who might buy his clothes through the post:”He’s cone of those gentlemen who’re a bit careless during the day. I shouldn’t wonder.” In hear them adding wistful, anxiously to convince themselves, “if he takes troubles at niight.”

They have their revenge, though, when they get me inside one of their horrible cubicles, for a fitting. But the time I have been inside one of those places ten minutes I have not ashred of self-respect left. It is worse than being at the barber’s and fully equal to being at the dentist’s. To stand like a dummy, to be simply a shape of flesh and hone, is bad enough, but what make it much worse are the mirrors and the lighting. These mirrors go glimmering away into infinity. At each side is a greeny-gold tunnel. I do not mind theat, having only a slight distaste for tunnels and hardly any at all for infinity. But I do not like all thoes images of myself. Wherever I look, I see a man whose qppearance does not please me. His head seems rathe too hig for his body, his body rather oto gbig for his legs. In that merciess bright light, his face looks fattish and somewhat sodden. There is something aguely dirty about him. The clothes he is wearing, apart from the particular garment he is trying on at the oment, look baggy, wrinkled, and shabby. He does not pay enough attention to his collar, his boots. His hair wants cutting, and another and closer shave would do him good. In full face he does not inspire confidence. His profile, however, is simply ridiculous, and the back view of him is really horrible. And a woman and several vhildren are tied ot a fellow like that incredible that a man can take such a face and carcase about with him, and yet entertain a tolerably good opinion of himself! As I think these things, it is possible that I smile a little. That is what it feels like - smiling a little; but immediately twenty images in that cubicle break int ghostly grins, produce wrinkles from nowhere, show distorted acres of cheek and jowl. And there is no looking away.

Meanwhile the tailors themselves, so neat, so clean, so deft, are busy with the pins and

To me the meanest flower that blows can give
Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears.
—Worthwords
即使最賤的花朵綻放，也能給我帶來沉思，
深埋心底，使我潸然淚下。

Between the chaos of Regent Street and the opulent bustle of New Bond Street is a little region that is curiously hushed. It is made up of short streets that pretend to run paralleled to one another, but actually go off at all angles. At a first glance these streets appear to be filled with the offices of very old firms of family solicitors. Many of their windows have severe wire screens. The establishments there have a certain air of dignified secrecy, not unlike that of servants of the old school, those impassive butlers who appeared to know nothing, but really knew everything. There is little evidence that anything is being sold in this part of the world. The electric - light bills must be very modest indeed, for there are no flashing signs to assault the eye, no gaudily dressed windows to tempt the feet to loiter. Whatever the season no Sales are held there. You are not invited to stop a moment longer than you may wish to do. Now and then you catch sight of a roll of cloth a pair of riding breeches, or, perhaps, a sobbed little drawing of a gentlemen in evening clothes, and as you pass you can hear these things whispering: “If you are a gentleman and wish to wear the clothes that a gentleman should wear, kindly make an appointment here and well see what we can do for you..” Money, of course, is not mentioned, this being impossible in all such gentlemanly transactions. For this is the region, Savile Row, Conduit Street, Maddox Street, and the rest , of the tailors or - rather - the tailors. Enter it wearing a cheap ready-made suit, and immediately the poor thing begins to bag in some places and shrivel up in others. If you have the these establishments wearing a ready-made suit, you will regret it. Noting is said, but a glance from one of the higher officials here strips you and quietly deposits your apparel in the dust-bin.

The hush here is significant. It might be described as old-world and for a very good reason., too. In a new world in which anything will do so long as it arrives quickly and easily, this region has fallen sadly behind the time . It is still engaged in the old quest for perfection. Behind these wire screens the search for the absolute still goes on. Tailoring here remains one of the arts. There are men in this quarter who could announce in all sincerity that trouser are beauty, beauty trousers, and that is all we know and need to know. For them the smallest seam they sew can give thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears. That they are artists and not tradesmen is proved by the fact that, unlike tradesmen, they do not labour to please their customers, but to please themselves. A tailor who is a mere shopkeeper fits you until you are satisfied. These artists go on fitting you until they are satisfied, and that they continue long after have lost all interest in the matter. You stand there, amere body or lay figure and they still go on delicately ripping out sleeves, and collars with their little penknives, pinning and unpinning, and making mysterious signs with chalk, and you have long ceased to understand what all the bother is about. And even then they may thell you, quietly but firmly, that they must have another fitting. That they should do this to me is poof positive of their disinterested passion for the art of tailoring.