sociated in my mind with judges,
professors, senators and doctors of divinity.

It was, moreover, a dignified and logical garment. It clothed with equal
charity a man's stomach and his stern. Generous of its skirts, which
went far to conceal wrinkled trousers, it could be worn with a light tie
at a formal dinner or with a dark tie at a studio tea, and was equally
appropriate at a funeral or a wedding. For all these several reasons it
remained the uniform of professional men throughout the Middle Border.
From my earliest childhood it had been my ideal of manly elegance. Even
in New York I had kept pretty close to the social level where it was
still accepted.

The World's Fair in '93, however, had not only brought to Chicago many
of the discriminating social customs of the East, but also many
distinguished guests from the old world to whom dress was a formal,
almost sacred routine. To meet these noble aliens, we, the artists and
writers of the city, were occasionally invited; and the question "Shall
we conform" became ever more pressing in its demand for final
settlement. One by one my fellows had deserted from the ranks and were
reported as rubbing shoulders with plutocrats in their great
dining-rooms or escorting ladies into gilded reception parlors, wearing
garments which had no relationship to learning, or art, or law, as I had
been taught to believe. Lorado Taft, Oliver Dennett Grover, and even
Henry Fuller had gone over to the shining majority, leaving me almost
alone in stubborn support of the cylindrical coat.

To surrender was made very difficult for me by Eugene Field, who had
publicly celebrated me as "the sturdy opponent of the swallow-tail
suit," and yet he himself,--though still outwardly faithful--had been
heard to say, "I may be forced to wear the damned thing _yet_."

In all this I felt the wind of social change. That I stood at the
parting of the ways was plain to me. To continue on my present line of
march would be to have as exemplars Walt Whitman, Joaquin Miller, John
Burroughs and other illustrious non-conformists to whom long beards,
easy collars, and short coats were natural and becoming. To take the
other road was to follow Lowell and Stedman and Howells. To shorten my
beard--or remove it altogether,--to wear a standing collar, and attached
cuffs--to abandon my western wide-rimmed hat--these and many other
"reforms" were involved in my decision. Do you wonder that I hesitated?

That I was bei