Cabinet of curiosities

“ Thou only of the beings who live wast acquainted with the existence of these manuscripts: thou art many miles distant, and art utterly a stranger to the mode or place of their concealment. Not only access to the cabinet, but access to the room, without my knowledge and permission, was impossible: both were locked during this night. Not five hours had elapsed since the cabinet and drawer had been opened, and since the letters had been seen and touched, being in their ordinary position. ”

“ To those who are fond of studying human character, and who derive amusement from observing its numerous varieties, a public conveyance of any kind is an interesting study—a cabinet in which they may chance to meet with strange and rare specimens to add to their collection of human originals. I do not envy the man who seems to think the warning bell of the steamboat, or the shutting of the door of the stage-coach, a signal to him to close the door of his mouth and ears ”

“ Every trick that money can play with the most lavish abundance of water is here exhibited; nor is the sight of a jet d'eau, or the murmur of an artificial cascade, undelightful in a hot day, let the Nature-mongers say what they please. The prince's cabinet, for a private collection, is not a mean one ”

“ The cabinet is not only extremely valuable in its art treasures, in the form of engraved gems and cameos, ancient, mediæval, and modern, but it is a noble monument of the good taste and liberality of the sovereigns of Russia. ”

“ It is a marvelous modern reality, smacking of the magic of Bagdad caliph eras, that the Windsor Street cabinet of individually expert cosmopolitans, with their teeming clusters of resourceful understudies, command a metaphorical view of the surface of all hemispheres, like a submersible’s captain seated beside the disk of camera obscura scanning the ocean’s bosom. ”

“ Success attend all your endeavors for the public weal; and that happiness and approbation of your country be the reward of your labors [379] is the ardent wish of your affectionate
Portia.
264. John Adams. Without date, 1780.
My dear Portia,—Yesterday we went to see the garden of the King, Jardin du Roi, and his cabinet of natural history, cabinet d'histoire naturelle. The cabinet of natural history is a great collection of metals, minerals, shells, insects, birds, beasts, fishes, and precious stones. ”

“ Such, however, who are disposed to make a collection sufficiently extensive to form a complete one, will find it necessary to devote a great deal of time to the purpose, as well as to be endued with a considerable share of perseverance and ingenuity; those who are possessed of affluence will find it far less difficult to acquire one. The cabinet, to appear with that elegance which the subject deserves, should be of mahogany, well seasoned, and made by a good workman in such a manner that all the joints may fit with the greatest nicety ”

“ A warning may not be out of place to those who imagine that these famous names applied to furniture really indicate that the cabinet-making was done by the craftsmen themselves. Without unimpeachable documentary evidence, it is utterly impossible to ascribe any fine piece of mahogany to any one of the three great cabinet-makers of the eighteenth century. ”

“ In those governments which are administered by an executive committee of the legislative body, not only this training but also this exhibition is constant and complete. The career which leads to cabinet office is a career of self-exhibition. ”

“ She knows every cabinet de lecture in every town; the little, cheap, shabby ones, I mean, in the back streets, where they have odd volumes and only ask a sou and the books are so old that they smell like close rooms. ”

“ The science of the cabinet, as then practised, authorized such a system of artifice and shameless duplicity, as greatly impaired the credit of those official documents which we are accustomed to regard as the surest foundations of history.
The only records which we can receive with full confidence are the private correspondence of contemporaries, which, from its very nature, is exempt from most of the restraints and affectations incident more or less to every work destined for the public eye. ”

“ Now the letter and the volume are in the Pierpont Morgan library, united forever.
Some collectors, to my eternal amazement, are completely satisfied with small libraries. This desire for a limited number of exquisite books originated in France centuries ago. Many of the wealthiest and most meticulous book lovers went in for what is known as cabinet collecting. They liked small books which they could handle easily, and found no interest in the first edition of even an important classic if it were large. ”

“ We have discovered a most interesting curiosity for our natural-history cabinet—the embodiment of a presumably new form of intelligence in the divine plan looking to the survival of the fittest. It is not known how many years or centuries it has taken the little warbler to develop this clever resource to outwit the cow-bird. ”

“ Those who are desirous of enriching their collection with the productions of other climes, will require a cabinet much more extensive, or, as the subject may be said to be inexhaustible, may devote several to exotic insects only. ”

“ His services to the museum are to be measured, not so much by what he actually effected for it, great as some of these achievements were, but by the new spirit which he infused into it, the spring of all that it has done and is doing after him. His principles of administration have been thus summarised: (1) The museum is not a show, but an institution for the diffusion of culture. (2) It is a department of the civil service, and should be conducted in the spirit of other public departments. (3) It should be managed with the utmost possible liberality. ”

“ The most important document submitted to a cabinet during our existence as a nation is under discussion. A spectator permitted to look in upon that scene would give little thought and small heed to the mere accessories and adjuncts of the occasion. ”

“ The pediment, which is still perfect, in the rear of the building, is a piece of carving, worthy of the choicest cabinet of Europe. The thieveries from the amphitheatre are easily detected. There is scarcely a beggar’s house in the village, that does not show a bit or two of sculptural marble upon its front. ”

“ The Ministry of Information is closed, but should be at once reorganised as the Ministry of Fiction, with a staff of no fewer than five hundred clerks, and installed in suitable premises, the British Museum for choice, thus emancipating the younger generation from the dead hand of archæology. ”

“ In a little while, the room was filled with people, and the séance began; the gas being lowered to a dim religious light. When the time came for the writing, Mr. Keeler requested that some of the tablets of paper on the mantel be passed into the cabinet. This was done. Various persons present received ‘spirit’ communications, the slips of paper being thrown over the curtain of the cabinet by a ‘materialized’ hand. Some gentleman picked up the papers and read them, for the benefit of the spectators ”

“ The fundamental act further provides that the secretary of the institution already defined shall also be secretary of the board of regents. The museum is primarily to contain objects of art and of foreign and curious research; next, objects of natural history, plants, and geological and mineralogical specimens belonging to the United States. Provision is also made for a library, and the functions of the regents and of the secretary were denned. ”

“ The showman turns this cabinet around and shows that there is nothing abnormal about it externally. He then asks some of the spectators to come up close to it, and lets them examine its interior, which is entirely empty. There is no double bottom, nor any hiding place. When the witnesses have made themselves certain of this fact they station themselves around the stage, and a certain number of them even consent to remain behind the cabinet and see nothing of the experiment. ”

“ A rope is tied about the medium’s neck with the knots at the back and the ends are thrust through two holes in one side of the cabinet, and tied in a bow knot on the outside. The holes in the cabinet must be on a level with the medium’s neck, after he is seated. The curtains of the cabinet are then closed, and the committee requested to keep close watch on the bow-knot on the outside of the cabinet. The assistant in a short time pulls back the curtain from the cabinet on the side farthest from the medium, and reveals a sheeted figure which writes messages and speaks to the spectators. ”

“ The cabinet of antiques, above stairs, contains the busts, vases, inscriptions, instruments of sacrifice, &c. collected by the celebrated Caylus.
The cabinet of engravings, which occupies what is called, in France, the “entresol,” or the floor between the first and second, consists of five thousand volumes, divided into twelve classes. [254] The first contains sculptors, architects, engineers, and engravers, arranged in schools. ”

“ Cabinet collections are always supposed to be of small objects, and in this sense we speak of a cabinet picture. Cabinet-work is, by extension, the art of fine woodwork such as was used at one time largely in making the delicate decorative furniture for such rooms and collections. ”

“ Cabinet tricks have always been a great stand-by for performers in spiritualism. A committee from the audience is usually chosen, and after tying the performer securely to a chair or board or in some other way binding him very securely, he is then placed in a cabinet, the curtains drawn, and immediately manifestations take place, such as the ringing of bells, the banging of tambourines and playing of guitars. ”

“ A roll-top desk and a filing-cabinet occupied the center of the room, and toward these Ronnie gave an expressive nod.
"There ought to be plenty of data for your investigations here," he observed with a smile. "There seem to be enough papers and memoranda to clear up a thousand mysteries. And the desk is not even locked—or the cabinet, either. ”

“ He got that again imitated at Loodhiana, which place became a great dépôt for troops when the war began; every officer wanted a chair for his march, and there is actually a great manufactory of these chairs going on at that remote place, all copied from Mr. ——’s. To return to my cabinet, it has been great fun filling it with all the odds and ends of pretty things about the room, and the effect is really beautiful. ”

“ This cabinet, which occupies the buildings on the right, on entering from the street, is open to students on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Saturdays, from eleven o'clock till two, and to the public in general every Tuesday and Friday in the afternoon. The library, chiefly composed of works relating to natural history, contains, among other valuable articles, an immense collection of animals and plants, painted on vellum. Three painters are charged to continue this collection under the superintendance of the professors. The library is open to the public every day from eleven o'clock to two. ”

“ Of course I can't be certain without a careful examination, but I believe that cabinet, beautiful as it is, is merely the counterpart of this one."
He paused and looked at me, his eyes bright with the enthusiasm of the connoisseur.
"I'm not sure I understand your jargon," I said. "What do you mean by 'counterpart?'"
"Boule furniture," he explained, "is usually of ebony inlaid with tortoise-shell, and incrusted with arabesques in metals of various kinds. ”

“ I regard the Cabinet Library as a most important accession to the means of intellectual and moral culture, especially in respect to the rising generation. But while it is peculiarly adapted to the young, it may be read by persons of any age with both pleasure and profit. To men of business, who have not leisure to read extensively, and indeed to all who would keep up with the times, the work is invaluable. ”

“ Now the Curiosity Museum is a Library, and a Museum of Curiosities and a library are, ergo, moulded into one—a National Gallery; whereas the materials will not amalgamate,—not one is a bit like the other. To go on is really to get deeper and deeper into the quagmire of nonsense, the only kind of depth to be met with in the whole pamphlet. ”

“ He flushed a little at the words, and I saw how deeply in earnest he was.
"The craze of the collector takes him a long way sometimes," he said. "But I believe I know what I'm talking about. I am going to make a careful examination of the cabinet as soon as I can. Perhaps I'll find something—there ought to be a monogram on it somewhere. What I want you to do is to cable my shippers, Armand et Fils, Rue du Temple, find out who owns this cabinet, and buy it for me."
"Perhaps the owner won't sell," I suggested.
"Oh yes, he will. Anything can be bought—for a price." ”

“ Et, pur, du genre humain ne garde que le moule,
N’en daigne consacrer que les traits éternels!
[293] Herodotus, i. 195. Strabo says the same thing, but in a passage (xvi. i. 20) , in which he borrows from Herodotus without acknowledgment.
[294] There are fine series of these seals, or cylinders, both in the Louvre and in the Cabinet des Antiques of the French National Library. But the collection of the British Museum is the richest of all. It possesses about 660 examples, against the 500 of the Cabinet des Antiquités, and the 300 of the Louvre. The cabinet at the Hague has 150. ”

“ In this historic cabinet there were five chairs, a marble-topped table, a pitcher of iced water, a bureau, a box of cigars and a Bible, a chandelier with all the gas jets burning, and a bed, whereon sat such dignitaries as obtained an audience,—railroad presidents, governors and ex-governors and prospective governors, the Speaker, the President of the Senate, Bijah Bixby, Peleg Hartington, mighty chiefs from the North Country, and lieutenants from other parts of the state. ”