It would evidently be childish to attempt to assign a date to the invention of Parasols; it would be better to go back to Genesis at once. A biblical expression, /the shelter which defends from the sun/, would almost suffice to demonstrate the Oriental origin of the Parasol, if it did not appear everywhere in the most remote antiquity--as well in the Nineveh sculptures, discovered and described by M. Layard; as on the bas-reliefs of the palaces or frescoes of the tombs of Thebes and Memphis. In China they used the Parasol more than two thousand years before Christ. There is mention of it in the /Thong-sou-wen/, under the denomination of /San-Kaï/, in the time of the first dynasties, and a Chinese legend attributes the invention of it to the wife of Lou-pan, a celebrated carpenter of antiquity. "Sir," said this incomparable spouse to her husband, "you make with extreme cleverness houses for men, but it is impossible to make them move, whilst the object which I am framing for their private use can be carried to any distance, beyond even a thousand leagues." And Lou-pan, stupefied by his wife's genius, then saw the unfolding of the first Parasol. Interesting as these legends may be, handed down by tradition to the peoples of the East, they have no more historical credit than our delicate fables of mythology: they preserve in themselves less of the poetic quintessence, and above all seem less connected with that mysterious charm with which Greek paganism drowned that charming Olympus wherefrom the very origins of art appear to descend. Let the three Graces be represented burned by Apollo, tired of flying through the shadows, where Fauns and Ægipans lie in ambush, or let these three fair ones be painted in despair at the fiery sensation of sunburning which brands their epidermis; let them invoke Venus, and let the Loves appear immediately, bearers of unknown instruments, busily occupied in working the little hidden springs, ingeniously showing their different uses and salutary effects; let a poet--a Voltaire, a Dorat, a Meunier de Querlon, or an Imbert of the time--be kind enough to forge some rhymes of gold on this fable; let him, in fine, inspired by these goddesses, compose an incontestable master-piece, and behold /the Origin of the Sunshade/! graven in pretty legendary letters on the temple of Memory, not to be contradicted by any spectacled /savant/ in the world.