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THE SUNSHADE

THE GLOVE--THE MUFF




 THE SUNSHADE

 THE GLOVE--THE MUFF

 BY

 OCTAVE UZANNE

 /ILLUSTRATED BY PAUL AVRIL/

 LONDON
 J. C. NIMMO AND BAIN
 14, KING WILLIAM STREET, STRAND, W.C.
 1883




PREFACE


After /the brilliant success which attended, in the spring of last
year, our volume on/ The Fan--/a success which was the result, as
I cannot conceal from myself, much more of the original conception
and decorative execution of that work of luxe than of its literary
interest--I have determined to close this series of/ Woman's
Ornaments /by a last little work on the protective adornments of
that delicate being, as graceful as she is gracious/: The Sunshade,
the Glove, the Muff. /This collection, therefore, of feminine toys
will be limited to two volumes, a collection which at first sight
appeared to us so complex and heavy that a dozen volumes at least
would have been required to contain its principal elements. This,
doubtless, on the one hand, would have tried our own constancy, and
on the other, would have failed in fixing more surely the inconstancy
of our female readers. The spirit has its freaks of independence, and
the unforeseen of life ought to be carefully economised. Moreover,
to tell the whole truth, the decorative elegance of a book like
the present hides very often beneath its prints the torture of an
intellectual thumbscrew. The unhappy author is obliged to confine his
exuberant ideas in a sort of strait-jacket in order to slip them more
easily through the varied combinations of pictorial design, which
here rules, an inexorable Mentor, over the text./

/In a work printed in this manner, just as in a theatre, the/ mise
en scène /is often detrimental to the piece; the one murders the
other--it cannot be otherwise--the public applauds, but the writer
who has the worship of his art sorrowfully resigns himself, and
inwardly protests against the condescension of which he has had
experience/.

/Two volumes, then, under a form which thus imprisons the strolling,
sauntering, inventive, and paradoxical spirit, will be sufficient for
my lady readers. Very soon we shall meet again in books with vaster
horizons, and "ceilings not so low," to employ an expression which
well describes the moral imprisonment in which I am enveloped by the
graces and exquisite talent of my collaborateur, Paul Avril/.

/Let it be understood, then, that I have no personal literary
pretensions in this work. As the sage Montaigne says in his/ Essays,
"/I have here but collected a heap of foreign flowers, and brought of
my own only the string which binds them together./"

 /OCTAVE UZANNE./




THE SUNSHADE

/THE PARASOL ---- THE UMBRELLA/


The author of a /Dictionary of Inventions/, after having proved the
use of the Parasol in France about 1680, openly gives up any attempt
to determine its precise original conception, which indeed seems to
be completely concealed in the night of time.

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
