O you who lisp, and amble, and change the fashion of your countenances--you who conceal all these, how little do you think that you left a proof of your weakness in our umbrella-stand--that even now, as you shake out the folds to meet the thickening snow, we read in its ivory handle the outward and visible sign of your snobbery, or from the exposed gingham of its cover detect, through coat and waistcoat, the hidden hypocrisy of the '_dickey_'! But alas! even the umbrella is no certain criterion.

The falsity and the folly of the human race have degraded that graceful symbol to the ends of dishonesty; and while some umbrellas, from carelessness in selection, are not strikingly characteristic (for it is only in what a man loves that he displays his real nature), others, from certain prudential motives, are chosen directly opposite to the person's disposition.

A mendacious umbrella is a sign of great moral degradation.

Hypocrisy naturally shelters itself below a silk; while the fast youth goes to visit his religious friends armed with the decent and reputable gingham.

May it not be said of the bearers of these inappropriate umbrellas that they go about the streets 'with a lie in their right hand'?
The kings of Siam, as we read, besides having a graduated social scale of umbrellas (which was a good thing), prevented the great bulk of their subjects from having any at all, which was certainly a bad thing.