England -- Fiction; Fox hunting -- Fiction; Humorous stories; Hunting stories
That there may be a dandified simplicity in dress, is exemplified every day
by our friends the Quakers, who adorn their beautiful brown Saxony coats
with little inside velvet collars and fancy silk buttons, and even the
severe order of sporting costume adopted by our friend Mr. Sponge is not
devoid of capability in the way of tasteful adaptation. This Mr. Sponge
chiefly showed in promoting a resemblance between his neck-cloths and
waistcoats. Thus, if he wore a cream-coloured cravat, he would have a
buff-coloured waistcoat, if a striped waistcoat, then the starcher would be
imbued with somewhat of the same colour and pattern. The ties of these
varied with their texture. The silk ones terminated in a sort of coaching
fold, and were secured by a golden fox-head pin, while the striped
starchers, with the aid of a pin on each side, just made a neat,
unpretending tie in the middle, a sort of miniature of the flagrant,
flyaway, Mile-End ones of aspiring youth of the present day. His coats were
of the single-breasted cut-away order, with pockets outside, and generally
either Oxford mixture or some dark colour, that required you to place him
in a favourable light to say what it was.
His waistcoats, of course, were of the most correct form and material,
generally either pale buff, or buff with a narrow stripe, similar to the
undress vests of the servants of the Royal Family, only with the pattern
run across instead of lengthways, as those worthies mostly have theirs, and
made with good honest step collars, instead of the make-believe roll
collars they sometimes convert their upright ones into. When in deep
thought, calculating, perhaps, the value of a passing horse, or considering
whether he should have beefsteaks or lamb chops for dinner, Sponge's thumbs
would rest in the arm-holes of his waistcoat; in which easy, but not very
elegant, attitude he would sometimes stand until all trace of the idea that
elevated them had passed away from his mind.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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