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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table by Oliver Wendell Holmes: the Port-chuck also winking and thrusting his tongue into his
cheek, I perceived that I had been trifled with, and the effect has
been to make me sensitive and observant respecting this article of
dress ever since. Here is an axiom or two relating to it.
A hat which has been POPPED, or exploded by being sat down upon, is
never itself again afterwards.
It is a favorite illusion of sanguine natures to believe the
contrary.
Shabby gentility has nothing so characteristic as its hat. There
is always an unnatural calmness about its nap, and an unwholesome
gloss, suggestive of a wet brush.
The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table | 
