{"product_id":"2940012675712","title":"THE MAGNIFICENT AMBERSONS","description":"Chapter I\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMajor Amberson had \"made a fortune\" in 1873, when other people were\u003cbr\u003elosing fortunes, and the magnificence of the Ambersons began then.\u003cbr\u003eMagnificence, like the size of a fortune, is always comparative, as even\u003cbr\u003eMagnificent Lorenzo may now perceive, if he has happened to haunt New\u003cbr\u003eYork in 1916; and the Ambersons were magnificent in their day and place.\u003cbr\u003eTheir splendour lasted throughout all the years that saw their Midland\u003cbr\u003etown spread and darken into a city, but reached its topmost during the\u003cbr\u003eperiod when every prosperous family with children kept a Newfoundland\u003cbr\u003edog.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn that town, in those days, all the women who wore silk or velvet knew\u003cbr\u003eall the other women who wore silk or velvet, and when there was a new\u003cbr\u003epurchase of sealskin, sick people were got to windows to see it go by.\u003cbr\u003eTrotters were out, in the winter afternoons, racing light sleighs on\u003cbr\u003eNational Avenue and Tennessee Street; everybody recognized both\u003cbr\u003ethe trotters and the drivers; and again knew them as well on summer\u003cbr\u003eevenings, when slim buggies whizzed by in renewals of the snow-time\u003cbr\u003erivalry. For that matter, everybody knew everybody else's family\u003cbr\u003ehorse-and-carriage, could identify such a silhouette half a mile down\u003cbr\u003ethe street, and thereby was sure who was going to market, or to a\u003cbr\u003ereception, or coming home from office or store to noon dinner or evening\u003cbr\u003esupper.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eDuring the earlier years of this period, elegance of personal appearance\u003cbr\u003ewas believed to rest more upon the texture of garments than upon their\u003cbr\u003eshaping. A silk dress needed no remodelling when it was a year or so\u003cbr\u003eold; it remained distinguished by merely remaining silk. Old men and\u003cbr\u003egovernors wore broadcloth; \"full dress\" was broadcloth with \"doeskin\"\u003cbr\u003etrousers; and there were seen men of all ages to whom a hat meant only\u003cbr\u003ethat rigid, tall silk thing known to impudence as a \"stove-pipe.\"\u003cbr\u003eIn town and country these men would wear no other hat, and, without\u003cbr\u003eself-consciousness, they went rowing in such hats.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eShifting fashions of shape replaced aristocracy of texture: dressmakers,\u003cbr\u003eshoemakers, hatmakers, and tailors, increasing in cunning and in power,\u003cbr\u003efound means to make new clothes old. The long contagion of the \"Derby\"\u003cbr\u003ehat arrived: one season the crown of this hat would be a bucket; the\u003cbr\u003enext it would be a spoon. Every house still kept its bootjack, but\u003cbr\u003ehigh-topped boots gave way to shoes and \"congress gaiters\"; and these\u003cbr\u003ewere played through fashions that shaped them now with toes like\u003cbr\u003ebox-ends and now with toes like the prows of racing shells.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eTrousers with a crease were considered plebeian; the crease proved that\u003cbr\u003ethe garment had lain upon a shelf, and hence was \"ready-made\"; these\u003cbr\u003ebetraying trousers were called \"hand-me-downs,\" in allusion to the\u003cbr\u003eshelf. In the early 'eighties, while bangs and bustles were having\u003cbr\u003etheir way with women, that variation of dandy known as the \"dude\" was\u003cbr\u003einvented: he wore trousers as tight as stockings, dagger-pointed shoes,\u003cbr\u003ea spoon \"Derby,\" a single-breasted coat called a \"Chesterfield,\" with\u003cbr\u003eshort flaring skirts, a torturing cylindrical collar, laundered to a\u003cbr\u003epolish and three inches high, while his other neckgear might be a heavy,\u003cbr\u003epuffed cravat or a tiny bow fit for a doll's braids. With evening dress\u003cbr\u003ehe wore a tan overcoat so short that his black coat-tails hung visible,\u003cbr\u003efive inches below the over-coat; but after a season or two he lengthened\u003cbr\u003ehis overcoat till it touched his heels, and he passed out of his tight\u003cbr\u003etrousers into trousers like great bags. Then, presently, he was seen\u003cbr\u003eno more, though the word that had been coined for him remained in the\u003cbr\u003evocabularies of the impertinent.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt was a hairier day than this. Beards were to the wearers' fancy,\u003cbr\u003eand things as strange as the Kaiserliche boar-tusk moustache were\u003cbr\u003ecommonplace. \"Side-burns\" found nourishment upon childlike profiles;\u003cbr\u003egreat Dundreary whiskers blew like tippets over young shoulders;\u003cbr\u003emoustaches were trained as lambrequins over forgotten mouths; and it\u003cbr\u003ewas possible for a Senator of the United States to wear a mist of white\u003cbr\u003ewhisker upon his throat only, not a newspaper in the land finding the\u003cbr\u003eornament distinguished enough to warrant a lampoon. Surely no more is\u003cbr\u003eneeded to prove that so short a time ago we were living in another age!\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAt the beginning of the Ambersons' great period most of the houses of\u003cbr\u003ethe Midland town were of a pleasant architecture. They lacked style, but\u003cbr\u003ealso lacked pretentiousness, and whatever does not pretend at all has\u003cbr\u003estyle enough. They stood in commodious yards, well shaded by leftover\u003cbr\u003eforest trees, elm and walnut and beech, with here and there a line of\u003cbr\u003etall sycamores where the land had been made by filling bayous from the\u003cbr\u003ecreek.","brand":"SAP","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47068573270256,"sku":"2940012675712","price":0.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/2940012675712_p0.jpg?v=1763571207","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/2940012675712","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}