THE SILK UMBRELLA
If you are the possessor of a silk umbrella and are desirous of appraising its merits, see what proportion the spread of it when open bears to the diameter when shut. To the extent the relation partakes of the nature of an inverse ratio, to that extent is your umbrella a good one.
Folding up a silk umbrella is quite an art, the acquisition of which seems wholly impossible to some people. You should gather the tips firmly together in your right hand, elevate your umbrellato an angle of forty-five degrees with the trunk of the body; then, commencing at the bottom, with your left hand gather the folds of the umbrella rapidly together, working all the while toward the top. When you have got as far as the confining band stop, adjust it, and your umbrella is folded.
A folded silk umbrella which has "bights" in it or measures more than two inches in diameter is a fraud, or else its owner does not possess the knack of folding it up properly. In the case of Ashanti, the umbrella has figured as a trophy, the great sun-shade of King Coffee being all the British have to show for their waste of blood and treasure in equatorial Africa.
The material, hue and poise of an umbrella are so many criteria of respectability. A man may deceive with his hat often, with his gloves seldom, but with his umbrella never. It is an unerring test of character, a passport to gentility, and nobody is quicker to recognize the ring of the true metal in another or to detect the pretensions of the spurious ones than the true gentleman himself.— The Morning Union, 1889
🍽Etiquette Enthusiast, Maura J. Graber of The RSVP Institute of Etiquette, is the Site Editor for the Etiquipedia© Etiquette Encyclopedia
