When style came naturally

“A great liner stealing through the vast loneliness of the Atlantic, the sky jewelled with myriads of stars overhead, and a thin little wind blowing cold and ever colder straight from the frozen ice fields, tapping its warning of approaching danger on the cosily shuttered portholes of the cabins, causing the look-out man to strain his eyes anxiously into the gloom. Inside this floating palace warmth, lights and music, the flutter of cards, the hum of voices, the gay lilt of a German valse — the unheeding sounds of a small world bent on pleasure. Then disaster, swift and overwhelming, turning all into darkness and chaos, the laughing voices changed into shuddering wails of despair.”

That’s from Discretions & Indiscretions, Lady Duff-Gordon’s 1932 autobiography recounting, among other things, her experiences on board the Titanic. I quote that passage because Lady Duff-Gordon wrote it three days after landing in New York aboard the Carpathia, and it reminded me of something that Jamie Thomson once said, that any person with a decent British education from the 1860s to the 1930s could write prose as good as that of the best modern authors. Compare it to this recent essay on the Silver Age of Marvel Comics; it’s comprehensive, eclectic and interesting, but the writing lacks all grace.

Lady Duff-Gordon also designed clothes (see above for one of her 1913 dresses) so she’s a salutary lesson in creativity for us all.