ella is as fine
an example of the civilised mind striving to express itself under
adverse circumstances as we have ever met with.

It is not for nothing, either, that the umbrella has become the very
foremost badge of modern civilisation--the Urim and Thummim of
respectability. Its pregnant symbolism has taken its rise in the most
natural manner. Consider, for a moment, when umbrellas were first
introduced into this country, what manner of men would use them, and
what class would adhere to the useless but ornamental cane. The first,
without doubt, would be the hypochondriacal, out of solicitude for their
health, or the frugal, out of care for their raiment; the second, it is
equally plain, would include the fop, the fool, and the Bobadil. Any one
acquainted with the growth of Society, and knowing out of what small
seeds of cause are produced great revolutions, and wholly new conditions
of intercourse, sees from this simple thought how the carriage of an
umbrella came to indicate frugality, judicious regard for bodily
welfare, and scorn for mere outward adornment, and, in one word, all
those homely and solid virtues implied in the term RESPECTABILITY. Not
that the umbrella's costliness has nothing to do with its great
influence. Its possession, besides symbolising (as we have already
indicated) the change from wild Esau to plain Jacob dwelling in tents,
implies a certain comfortable provision of fortune. It is not every one
that can expose twenty-six shillings' worth of property to so many
chances of loss and theft. So strongly do we feel on this point, indeed,
that we are almost inclined to consider all who possess really
well-conditioned umbrellas as worthy of the Franchise. They have a
qualification standing in their lobbies; they carry a sufficient stake
in the common-weal below their arm. One who bears with him an
umbrella--such a complicated structure of whalebone, of silk, and of
cane, that it becomes a very microcosm of modern industry--is
necessarily a man of peace. A half-crown cane may be applied to an
offender's head on a very moderate provocation; but a six-and-twenty
shilling silk is a possession too precious to be adventured in the shock
of war.

These are but a few glances at how umbrellas (in the general) came to
their present high estate. But the true Umbrella-Philosopher meets with
far stranger applications as he goes about the streets.

Umbrellas, like faces, acquire a certain sympathy with the ind