The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Magnificent Ambersons, by Booth Tarkington

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Title: The Magnificent Ambersons

Author: Booth Tarkington

Release Date: September, 2005 [EBook #8867]
Posting Date: August 2, 2009

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MAGNIFICENT AMBERSONS ***

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THE MAGNIFICENT AMBERSONS

By Booth Tarkington

Chapter I

Major Amberson had "made a fortune" in 1873, when other people were
losing fortunes, and the magnificence of the Ambersons began then.
Magnificence, like the size of a fortune, is always comparative, as even
Magnificent Lorenzo may now perceive, if he has happened to haunt New
York in 1916; and the Ambersons were magnificent in their day and place.
Their splendour lasted throughout all the years that saw their Midland
town spread and darken into a city, but reached its topmost during the
period when every prosperous family with children kept a Newfoundland
dog.

In that town, in those days, all the women who wore silk or velvet knew
all the other women who wore silk or velvet, and when there was a new
purchase of sealskin, sick people were got to windows to see it go by.
Trotters were out, in the winter afternoons, racing light sleighs on
National Avenue and Tennessee Street; everybody recognized both
the trotters and the drivers; and again knew them as well on summer
evenings, when slim buggies whizzed by in renewals of the snow-time
rivalry. For that matter, everybody knew everybody else's family
horse-and-carriage, could identify such a silhouette half a mile down
the street, and thereby was sure who was going to market, or to a
reception, or coming home from office or store to noon dinner or evening
supper.

During the earlier years of this period, elegance of personal appearance
was believed to rest more upon the texture of garments than upon their
shaping. A silk dress needed no remodelling when it was a year or so
old; it remained distinguished by merely remaining silk. Old men and
governors wore broadcloth; "full dress" was broadcloth with "doeskin"
trousers; and there were seen men of all ages to whom