Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in HistoryCarlyle, Thomas
Philosophy
Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History
Carlyle, Thomas
Clothing and dress -- Fiction; Conduct of life -- Fiction; Didactic fiction; Germany -- Fiction; Heroes; Philosophers -- Fiction; Satire
'Rich men, I find, have _Teusinke_' (a perhaps untranslateable
article); 'also a silver girdle, whereat hang little bells; so that
when a man walks, it is with continual jingling. Some few, of musical
turn, have a whole chime of bells (_Glockenspiel_) fastened there;
which, especially in sudden whirls, and the other accidents of
walking, has a grateful effect. Observe too how fond they are of
peaks, and Gothic-arch intersections. The male world wears peaked
caps, an ell long, which hang bobbing over the side (_schief_): their
shoes are peaked in front, also to the length of an ell, and laced on
the side with tags; even the wooden shoes have their ell-long noses:
some also clap bells on the peak. Further, according to my authority,
the men have breeches without seat (_ohne Gesaess_): these they fasten
peakwise to their shirts; and the long round doublet must overlap
them.
'Rich maidens, again, flit abroad in gowns scolloped out behind and
before, so that back and breast are almost bare. Wives of quality, on
the other hand, have train-gowns four or five ells in length; which
trains there are boys to carry. Brave Cleopatras, sailing in their
silk-cloth Galley, with a Cupid for steersman! Consider their welts, a
handbreadth thick, which waver round them by way of hem; the long
flood of silver buttons, or rather silver shells, from throat to shoe,
wherewith these same welt-gowns are buttoned. The maidens have bound
silver snoods about their hair, with gold spangles, and pendent flames
(_Flammen_), that is, sparkling hair-drops: but of their mother's
headgear who shall speak? Neither in love of grace is comfort
forgotten. In winter weather you behold the whole fair creation (that
can afford it) in long mantles, with skirts wide below, and, for hem,
not one but two sufficient hand-broad welts; all ending atop in a
thick well-starched Ruff, some twenty inches broad: these are their
Ruff-mantles (_Kragenmaentel_).
'As yet among the womankind hoop-petticoats are not; but the men have
doublets of fustian, under which lie multiple ruffs of cloth, pasted
together with batter (_mit Teig zusammengekleistert_), which create
protuberance enough. Thus do the two sexes vie with each other in the
art of Decoration; and as usual the stronger carries it.'
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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