I regretted this rather, as there was a fine air of dignity about the latter.
But I put down ‘4 paar sokken,’ with a note of interrogation, and added ‘vilten binnenzolen’ in brackets—to make all clear.
THE KERCHIEF OF QUEEN ELIZABETH.
There were seven ‘handkerchiefs’ to be translated into Dutch; and for ‘handkerchief’ the little fat Dictionary became more than usually oracular.
Opposite the English word it had two Dutch words without a comma between, so that I felt morally certain it was a case of vilten binnenzool again—a sort of euphonious compound which you must take in its entirety or not at all.
This compound word was ‘Zie beneden’.
I soon detected that the primitive meaning of this curious name was ‘look below’. At first indeed it struck me that it might refer to a footnote; but there was no footnote in the Dictionary, good or bad, from cover to cover, except B* on page 91, so I soon abandoned this idea as fanciful.
It was certainly hard to trace any connection between the advice (imperative mood, if you please) ‘see below!’ and what we usually understand by a ‘handkerchief’.
The mystery seemed to clear a little when I remembered that a ‘handkerchief’ was a ‘kerchief’ for the hand; and that in the Tudor age ‘kerchiefs’ used to be worn round the neck. In fine old historical portraits that I had seen of Queen Elizabeth and Queen Mary, their Majesties were always represented with elaborate cambric things about their shoulders. It was quite a feature of the period. Thus ‘zie beneden’ was no doubt the original word corresponding to ‘kerchief’; and it would take its name from the fact that when the wearer in ancient times glanced down, he could easily see it on his chest. He would call it a ‘look below’ quite naturally. Then the name would remain unaltered, while the article would become first a kerchief for the hand, then finally a pocket-handkerchief.
A WORK OF ART.