UMBRELLA STORIES.
Who could for a moment suppose that so important an article as the
Umbrella would be without its lighter as well as its more serious
history? Umbrellas are still, we regret to say, regarded rather in a
comic than a serious light; so, if any of the following anecdotes
seem to treat of Umbrellas in too mocking or frivolous a vein, it is
the fault of the bad taste of the British public, not ours, who have
merely compiled. However, we may commence with a very neat little
French riddle.
"Quel est l'objet que l'on recherche le plus quand on s'en dégoûte?"
A mysterious inquiry, and all sorts of horrible but needful
abominations occur to the mind in answer. But the answer is not so
bad after all. Change the spelling without altering the
pronunciation, and you get _quand on sent des gouties,_ and, lo!
you have it at once--le Parapluie--the faithful friend whose presence
we most desire when we wish least for the necessity of it; the burden
of our fine days, the shelter of our wet ones.
Or again, would you like a verse or two on the same subject?
"Pour étrenne, on veut à l'envie
Du frais et du neuf et du beau,
Je dis que c'est un parapluie,
Que l'on doit donner en _cas d'eau._"
The author of these two _jeux de mots_ unhappily we do not
know, or we would thank him for them. The English poet of the
Umbrella has yet to be born.
The next story relates to the early history of the Umbrella in
Scotland, and may probably be referred to the time when good Dr.
Jamieson was walking about Glasgow with his new-fangled sheltering
apparatus, which he had brought with him on his return from Paris. As
it was the first ever seen in that city, it attracted universal
attention, and a vast amount of impudence from the "horrid boys." The
following anecdote, then, which we borrow from a Scotch paper, most
probably refers to the same period, or thereabouts :--
"When Umbrellas were first marched into Blairgowrie, they were
sported only by the minister and the laird, and were looked upon by
the common class of people as a perfect phenomenon. One day Daniel M--
went to Colonel McPherson, at Blairgowrie House; when about to
return, a shower came on, and the colonel politely offered him the
loan of an Umbrella, which he gladly accepted, and Daniel, with his
head two or three inches higher than usual, marched off. Not long
after he had left, however, the colonel again saw Daniel posting
towards him with all possible haste, still o'ertopped by his cotton
canopy (silk Umbrellas were out of the question in those days), which
he held out, saluting him with--' Hae, hae, Kornil, this'll never do!
there's nae a door in all my house that'll tak it in; my very
barn-door winna' tak it in.'"
In the veracious "History of Sandford and Merton," if our memory
serves us aright, there is an instance quoted of remarkable presence
of mind relating to an Umbrella and its owner. The members of a
comfortable pic-nic party were cosily assembled in some part of
India, when an unbidden and most unwelcome guest made his appearance,
in the shape of a huge Bengal tiger. Most persons would, naturally,
have sought safety in flight, and not stayed to hob-and-nob with this
denizen of the jungle; not so, however, thought a lady of the party,
who, inspired by her innate courage, or the fear of losing her dinner
--perhaps by both combined seized her Umbrella, and opened it suddenly
in the face of the tiger as he stood wistfully gazing upon brown
curry and foaming Allsop. The astonished brute turned tail and fled,
and the lady saved her dinner. Not many years ago the Umbrella was
employed in an equally curious manner, though not so successfully as
in the former instance. In the campaign of 1793, General
Bournonville, who was sent with four commissioners by the National
Convention to the camp of the Prince of Saxe-Coburg, was detained as
a prisoner with his companions, and confined in the fortress of
Olmütz. In this situation he made a desperate attempt to regain his
liberty. Having procured an Umbrella, he leaped with it from a window
forty feet above the ground, but being a very heavy man, it did not
prove sufficient to let him down in safety. He struck against an
opposite wall, fell into a ditch and broke his leg, and, worse than
all, was carried back to his prison.
One of the most remarkable instances on record, in which the
Umbrella was the agency of a man's life being saved, occurred,
according to his own statement, to our old friend Colonel Longbow. Of
course our kind readers know him as well as we do, for not to do so
"would be to argue yourselves unknown." At any Continental watering
place, Longbow, or one of his family--for it is a large one--can be
met with. He is, indeed, a wonderful man--on intimate terms with all
the crowned heads of Europe, and proves his intimacy by always
speaking of them by their Christian names.
He is at once the "guide, philosopher, and friend" of every stranger
who happens to form his acquaintance--a very easy task, be it
remarked--and, though so great a man, is not above dining at your
expense, and charming you by the terms of easy familiarity with which
he imbibes your champagne or your porter, for all is alike to him, so
long as he has not to pay for it: he can take any given quantity.
Well, the other day we happened to meet the Colonel, and he speedily
contrived to discover that we were on the point of going to dine, and
so invited him to share our humble meal, as a graceful way of making
a virtue of necessity, for had we not done so, he would have had no
hesitation in inviting himself. During dinner, conversation, of
course, turned upon one all-engrossing subject, the war, and the
Colonel proceeded to give us his experiences of former wars,
including his adventures in the Crimea, and the miraculous escape he
owed to an Umbrella.
It appeared that he had gone out with his friend, Lord Levant, on a
yachting excursion in the Mediterranean, and they eventually found
their way into the Black Sea. Stress of weather compelled them to put
into the little port of Yalta, on the north coast, where they went on
shore. The Colonel, on the Lucretian principle of "Suave mari magno,"
&c., proceeded the next morning to the verge of the precipice to
observe the magnificent prospect of a sea running mountains high. As
it was raining at the time, he put up a huge gingham Umbrella he
happened to find in the hotel. Suddenly, however, a furious blast of
wind drove across the cliff, and lifted the Colonel bodily in the
air. Away he flew far out to sea, the Umbrella acting as a Parachute
to let him fall easy.
Now to most men this would only have been a choice of evils, a
progress from Scylla to Charybdis: not so to our Colonel. On coming
up to the surface after his first dip, he found that swimming would
not save him; so he quietly emptied out the water contained in the
Umbrella, seated himself upon it, and sailed triumphantly into the
harbour, like Arion on his dolphin.
Our face, on hearing this anecdote, must have betrayed the
scepticism we felt, for the Colonel proceeded to a corner of the
room, and produced the identical Umbrella. Of course, such a proof
was irresistible, and we were compelled to do penance for our
unbelief by lending the gallant Colonel a sovereign, for "the Bank
was closed." We thought the anecdote cheap at the price.
There is a story told of one of our City bankers, that he owed an
excellent wife to the interposition of an Umbrella. It appears that
on returning home one day in a heavy shower of rain, he found a young
lady standing in his doorway. Politeness induced him to invite her to
take shelter under his roof, and eventually to offer her the loan of
an Umbrella. Of course, the gallant banker called for it the next
day, and the acquaintance thus accidentally made, soon ripened into
mutual affection. This species of Umbrella courtship has been
immortalised in more than one song, none of which, however, are quite
worth quoting.
A worthy little Frenchman of our acquaintance was ordered by his
medical man to take a course of shower-baths. Such things being
unknown to him in his fatherland, he of course found the first essay
remarkably unpleasant, but with native ingenuity he soon discovered a
remedy. On our asking him how he liked the hydropathic system, he
replied, "Oh, mais c'est charmant, mon ami; I always take my
parapluie wid me into de bath."
Douglas Jerrold, in his well-known "Punch's Letters to his Son,"
gives an anecdote of which we can only say, si non _è vero, è ben
trovato_. It at all events illustrates the frightful morality that
exists with regard to borrowing Umbrellas.
"Hopkins once lent Simpson, his next-door neighbour, an Umbrella. You
will judge of the intellect of Hopkins, not so much from the act of
lending an Umbrella, but from his insane endeavour to get it back again.
"It poured in torrents, Hopkins had an urgent call. Hopkins knocked
at Simpson's door. 'I want my Umbrella.' Now Simpson had also a call
in a directly opposite way to Hopkins; and with the borrowed Umbrella
in his hand, was advancing to the threshold. 'I tell you,' roared
Hopkins, 'I want my Umbrella.' 'Can't have it,' said Simpson. 'Why, I
want to go to the East-end; it rains in torrents; what'--screamed
Hopkins--'what am I to do for an Umbrella?'
"'Do!' answered Simpson, darting from the door, 'do as I did--BORROW
ONE.'"
The Umbrella has been most successfully introduced on the stage.
What, for instance, would Paul Pry have been without that valuable
implement for which to inquire with his stereotyped "Hope I don't
intrude?" Or his French successor, the nobleman in "The Grand
Duchess," who inquires, in plaintive accents, for "Le parapluie de ma
mere," just after Schneider has been declaiming about her father's
sabre? Merely to bring a big Umbrella on the stage is an acknowledged
way of raising a laugh. Mrs. Gamp again, with her receptacle for
unconsidered trifles, cannot be realised apart from her Umbrella. And
then, those hired waiters who come into our houses with an Umbrella
of graceful proportions, and emerge towards the small hours with a
most plethoric parapluie, which looks as if it had been regaling on
the good things as well as its master! It used to appear to us a
comical sight, years back, in the old city of Paris, to see the
National Guard going to exercise with a musket in one hand and an
Umbrella in the other, and we dare say it was a very sensible plan
after all, and might have been imitated with success before
Sebastopol. A stout steel Umbrella would offer no contemptible
shelter to a rifleman. This circumstance, too, may throw a light on a
hitherto obscure passage in "Macbeth," where Birnam Wood moves to
Dunsinane--for it is just possible that the soldiers cut down the
branches to serve them as a protection from the rain. We throw out
this as a hint to any enterprising manager.
In Germany, on the other hand, a soldier is--or used to be--strictly
forbidden from carrying an open Umbrella, unless he is accompanied by
a civilian or a lady. A worthy corporal, on one occasion, was sent to
fetch an Umbrella his Major's lady had left at a friend's house, and
at the same time took her lapdog for an airing. On the road home a
violent shower came on, and, to avoid committing a breach of the
regulations, under his arm he tucked the dog, which was contained,
according to his ideas, in both the above categories, put up the
Umbrella, and marched very comfortably to barracks.
With one more characteristic anecdote we will close our budget. One
evening, while Rowland Hill was preaching, a shower came on, and his
chapel was speedily filled with devotees. With that peculiar
sarcastic intonation which none could assume so successfully as
himself, he quietly remarked, "My brethren, I have often heard that
religion can be made a _cloak_, but this is the first occasion
on which I ever knew it could be converted into an _Umbrella_."