Domestic fiction; Sisters -- Fiction; Women -- England -- Fiction
A reversion, conceivably, to a mediaeval type! Yes, but also the
exemplar of the excessively modern! Externally he was a consequence of
the fact that, years previously, the leading tailor in Bursley had
permitted his son to be apprenticed in London. The father died; the son
had the wit to return and make a fortune while creating a new type in
the town, a type of which multiple chains were but one feature, and
that the least expensive if the most salient. For instance, up to the
historic year in which the young tailor created the type, any cap was a
cap in Bursley, and any collar was a collar. But thenceforward no cap
was a cap, and no collar was a collar, which did not exactly conform in
shape and material to certain sacred caps and collars guarded by the
young tailor in his back shop. None knew why these sacred caps and
collars were sacred, but they were; their sacredness endured for about
six months, and then suddenly--again none knew why--they fell from
their estate and became lower than offal for dogs, and were supplanted
on the altar. The type brought into existence by the young tailor was
to be recognized by its caps and collars, and in a similar manner by
every other article of attire, except its boots. Unfortunately the
tailor did not sell boots, and so imposed on his creatures no mystical
creed as to boots. This was a pity, for the boot-makers of the town
happened not to be inflamed by the type-creating passion as the tailor
was, and thus the new type finished abruptly at the edges of the
tailor's trousers.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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