On reaching England, the great scarlet-crimson (it was neither exactly one nor exactly the other) umbrella was consigned to the stand in the hall. Those were not the days when ladies spread red parasols above their bonnets, and had sunshades to match their gowns: in those days all parasols were brown or black; consequently the innovation of a red umbrella would be too great, too startling for me to attempt. But one morning--it was that on which the Duke and Duchess of Edinburgh made their entry into London after their marriage--I started early to drive to the station and go to town and join the sightseers. It may be in the recollection of those who were out that day that snow fell. Early in the morning in the country there was a good deal of snow, so much, that I thought I might safely take my Tyrolese umbrella to cover me in my gig. I intended to furl it before I reached the station and such places where men do congregate. It was remarkable that although the snow spoiled the picturesque effect of the procession in Regent’s Street by making the redcoats draw on their overcoats, it induced me to unfurl my marvellous red travelling tent--which is an instance, may be, of the compensation there is in nature. As I drove along, I chanced on an umbrella-maker, trudging through the snow, head down, with a bundle of his manufacture under his arm. He neither saw nor heard the dogcart till it was close on him, when the driver shouted to him to stand aside. Then he started back, looked up, and I saw the change of expression in the man’s face, as his eyes took in the apparition above him of the expanded red umbrella, flower-wreathed and brass-mounted. The face had been inanimate; then, a wild enthusiasm or astonishment kindled it, and down into the snow at his feet fell the umbrellas he was carrying. I drove on, but looked back at intervals, and as long as he was in sight, I saw him standing in the road, with eyes and mouth open, hands expanded and every finger distended, and his umbrellas, uncollected, scattered about him in the snow. These reminiscences of my remarkable umbrella lead me to say something of umbrellas in general. I hardly think that the true origin, development, and, shall I say, degradation of the umbrella, is generally known. Yet it deserves to be known, for it supplies a graphic and striking condensation of vast social changes.