The Bonnet

– No man – unless he is a man-milliner – can comprehend the niceties of a bonnet, although he may talk aesthetic nonsense about it by the hour. He sees in it only something to be paid for. In conversing with a lady, it is the face and not the bonnet that he regards. The face he may treasure up in his memory – if it is a pretty one – but of the bonnet, whether it is pretty or not, he does not carry away the remotest idea. The lady may meet him with three new bonnets on the same day, and he not know apart. But no new bonnet ever comes before a lady’s eye unchallenged and uncriticised. When ladies converse with each other it is not the face that each studies, but the bonnet. Her glance sweeps over that cunning work of flowers, feathers, laces, and ribbons, which rise in graceful arch above the head of her friend. Nothing escapes this survey, at top or bottom, back or front. She has resolved the bonnet into its original elements. Her memory retains every item, even the minutest, of which it is composed. At any subsequent period of her life she could draw upon her recollection, and have a perfect duplicate of her friend’s bonnet made is she desired it. This feat, which is incomprehensible to a man is a natural gift of the bonneted set.