Curiosity (collecting)

“ No, there are, in every period of taste, books which, apart from their literary value, all collectors admit to possess, if not for themselves, then for others of the brotherhood, a peculiar preciousness. These books are esteemed for curiosity, for beauty of type, paper, binding, and illustrations, for some connection they may have with famous people of the past, or for their rarity. ”

“ Ah, my little man, that's what interests you most! None of those masterpieces of human art can compete with the contemplation of the treasure as a matter of curiosity, eh?—And the whole crowd will be like you!—Come, you shall be satisfied. ”

“ What collector does not enjoy showing his treasures to others as appreciative as himself? Many delightful hours his intimates have passed in his library, which was also his bedroom,—for he wanted his books about him, where he could play with them at night and where his eye might rest on them the first thing in the morning,—but this was a privilege extended only to true book-lovers. ”

“ If he must be a collector, let him be first a collector of the many excellent books now published on old furniture, china, rugs, pewter, silver, prints, the things that will come his way. You can't begin collecting one thing without developing an enthusiasm for the contemporary things. ”

“ THROUGHOUT the history of art, or rather the history of collecting, there has always been, in conjunction with the desire to collect, a hesitancy in collecting just those things which are ever with us and about which we know the most. ”

“ The curiosity of the boy about the wonders of nature ceases, from the moment when his collection of curiosities fills the last of his pockets. But the pockets of the scientist take the form of extensible museums ”

“ Many collectors have become such through an increasing interest in old furniture, rare china, early silver, and other classes of antiques and curios, inspired in the beginning by the acquisition of some object of the sort, personal contact with which has served as an example of the pleasure which collecting holds in store for one. The true collector is not merely “a gatherer of things,” indifferent to the guidance of a discriminating taste. ”

“ A nucleus is soon formed, and, that accomplished, the collector is in the toils of his hobby, and unless he is an utter failure, one of those hopeless and helpless folk who can never learn to discriminate between the true and the false, he speedily acquires a collection which has not only provided him with a delightful recreation but is a source of considerable pride. ”

“ It is a moot point whether the frequent change in the ownership of curios which goes on every day, as evidenced by the auction sales, stirs up the curiosity of the collector and awakens his interest in his hobby to a greater extent than when such curios are placed on view in local museums. The fact remains that, notwithstanding the constant circulation of curios, many find a permanent home in museums. ”

“ Sentiment was strong in the early nineteenth century, and among the love tokens of that day, chiefly the work of amateurs, some very beautiful and unique curios were produced. These, too, have come down to the collector of the twentieth century, and help him to secure specimens representing every decade, so that in a large collection, carefully selected, the slow and yet sure progress made in the fine arts, and the improvement in the ornamental surroundings in the home, is made clear. ”

“ Such a collection, so maintained and so displayed, advances—slowly but certainly—the best interests of morals and philosophy. The curiosity which it excites, the gratification it affords, operate, though with differing degrees of intensity, on the most uncultivated and the best informed of those who visit it, to beget inquiry and awaken reflection; and in what can inquiry and reflection, thus originated, determine, but in producing or extending the most sublime impressions of the beneficence, the power, and the providence, of the Great Author of Creation? ”

“ Yes—the collection, the Museum with which he wishes to endow it, and of which he thinks more, as you know, than of anything in the world. It's the work of his life and the motive of everything he does. ”

“ It would much conduce to the magnanimity and honour of man, if a collection were made of the extraordinaries of human nature, principally out of the reports of history; that is, what is the last and highest pitch to which man’s nature, of itself, hath ever reached, in all the perfection of mind and body. ”

“ The collecting of interesting and unusual wills is by no means an easy undertaking: the information as to their location and contents, even those of famous men, is surprisingly limited; digesting and arranging them has been a tedious but interesting task. It will be seen by the collection submitted, that all avenues of information have been sought and critically examined. ”

“ Fond of the curious, and a hunter of oddities and strangenesses, while he conceived himself, with quaint and humourous gravity a useful inquirer into physical truth and fundamental science,—he loved to contemplate and discuss his own thoughts and feelings, because he found by comparison with other men's, that they too were curiosities, and so with a perfectly graceful and interesting ease he put them too into his museum and cabinet of varieties. ”

“ Perhaps what they do a little resembles the task of the children who spade up heaps of sand at the edge of the sea, laboring in vain, for all they have built will soon be overthrown, and that, no doubt, is true of collections of books and pictures also. ”

“ As I have said elsewhere, it has been no part of my object in writing my book to advocate indiscriminate collecting. But for those who are already collectors I have one word of advice on the subject of the arrangement of their treasures. Some enthusiasts advocate a chronological arrangement, others a genealogical, others a topographical: and the advocates of each theory paste down their specimens in scrap-books or other volumes in adherence to their own views. ”

“ I had undertaken a local list, of course,—a lazier kind of collecting,—and so was thankful for small favors. In the way of putting a shine upon common things the collecting spirit is second only to genius. ”

“ Reasons for compiling a history of one's collection—The part played by photographs—Armour suggested as an example—Material for grangerizing
In this concluding chapter we have a suggestion to make to the collector of ample leisure moments; briefly, it is that he should draw up a history of his treasures. Such a work has many valuable advantages; first, it helps to co-ordinate the pieces which our collection contains; second, it provides work of a fascinating nature; third, it leads us to hunt through books and collections and so increases our knowledge ”

“ The collection as a whole will afford excellent amusement for the fireside, will prove a splendid store-house from which to draw material for anecdote or illustration, is valuable for public reading or entertainment, and will be found enjoyable reading for private perusal, while as a cure for an attack of the blues it is unfailing. ”

“ I was in my own way a small collector—some etchings and prints, a few rare books, some bronzes—and I had realised what every collector realises, the disappointment when some friend who appears to regard life very much as you do sees nothing at all in something that stirs the very depths of your being. ”

“ Having arrived thus far, it behoves us to pause for a moment, and ask what benefit there is in this study of Folklore? The answer is not far to seek. Collection in itself is an instruction, and the objects which we collect influence our æsthetical feeling. There is always great pleasure experienced by every collector. But there is a profound difference between science and aimless dilettantism. ”

“ There is a lasting charm about a book of our choice which the antique-collector can never hope to experience. His treasure may be grotesque or it may be beautiful, in either case it may please the eye every time that he behold it, through many years. ”

“ I have the good fortune to number among my friends one who for half an ordinary lifetime has been so keen a collector of antiques that he has gathered together a host of treasures which have not only filled his house from ground floor to garret, but have partly stocked the local museum as well. ”

“ The way one learns to collect (and that means the way one learns about the things worth collecting) is by collecting. Contact with the objects themselves is necessary to connoisseurship, just as it is one of its pleasures. The collector learns more about Oriental porcelains, old English china, Dresden figurines, French enamels, Russian brass, Italian laces, or Bohemian{5} glass by having a few representative pieces of them at hand for study than he could learn, so far as helpful knowledge fitting him to judge is concerned, from volumes on the subject. ”

“ But this collection must not be considered as affording only entertainment to the idle, or speculative knowledge to the curious; it most forcibly impresses a sense of the vanity and brevity of life, which the moralist and the divine have always thought an important purpose, but which mere declamation can seldom attain. ”

“ The elegant trifles of literature, the wild strains of fancy, the pleasing amusements of harmless wit, shall, therefore, be considered as necessary to our collection. Nor shall we omit researches into antiquity, explanation of coins or inscriptions, disquisitions on controverted history, conjectures on doubtful geography, or any other of those petty works upon which learned ingenuity is sometimes employed. ”

“ What we collect depends as well upon our taste as upon our means, for, given zeal and intelligence, it is surprising how soon one acquires a collection of—whatever it may be—which becomes a source of relaxation and instruction; and after a little one becomes, if not exactly expert, at least wise enough to escape obvious pitfalls. When experience directs our efforts the chief danger is past. But how much there is to know! I never leave the company of a man like Dr. Rosenbach, or A. J. Bowden, or the late Luther Livingston, without feeling a sense of hopelessness coming over me. ”

“ The completion of such a collection reflects the perfect image of the mind of the philosopher, the philologist, the antiquary, the naturalist, the scientific or the legal character, who into one locality has gathered together and arranged this furniture of the human intellect. ”

“ So long as the modern child is environed by a museum, as the modern home appears, his curiosity must always be on edge, and if each new goal of curiosity is wrested from him by the usual 'Don't!' or the more ancient struggle for possession instead of by a transference of interest, then the contest will be interminable. ”

“ We value them not for their beauty or worth, but for the frequency with which we have seen them touched or used by them; and our eye runs over the collection, and perhaps lights most lovingly on the homeliest thing which may have been oftenest touched or worn by them. ”

“ Curiosity may be as debasing, I grant you, as craft. And craft might turn into artifices of a kind which would be noble and fine. Just as the ignorant and fitful curiosity of some little monkey is hardly to be compared to the astronomer's magnificent search, so the craft and cunning we see in our pussies would bear small relation to the high-minded planning of some ruler of the race we are imagining. ”

“ And when our curiosity is directed towards a useful object, the indulgence of it becomes both proper and beneficial. The world is filled with variety, and this variety is evidently designed by Providence to stimulate our curiosity, so that we may be incited to action and the pursuit of knowledge. ”

“ Thus the collection, ever multiplying, ever encroaching upon new fields of consciousness, ever rooting itself more firmly in the depths of instinct, became one of the dominating influences of that strange existence. ”

“ First, out of pure love for their subject, they gather together chance specimens almost at haphazard. Then, moved by an ever-growing interest, they take the pursuit more seriously, and, as one by one the worthier objects fall into their hands, they grow still more keen. Later, they discover to their sorrow that a complete collection is, humanly speaking, impossible: certain unique examples are not to be obtained for love or money, or, at all events, for the amount at their personal disposal. ”

“ It was rather his provident wisdom than their actual enjoyment, which induced him, at a busied period of his life, to accumulate from all parts books, and statues, and curiosities without number; in a word, to become, according to the term, too often misapplied and misconceived among us, for it is not always understood in an honourable sense, a COLLECTOR! ”

“ The collection as a whole will afford innocent recreation for the fireside and social circle, and thus contribute to the happiness of those who enjoy the higher forms of pleasure that flow from the exercise of the mind upon those subjects that require quickness of thought and a nimble wit. ”

“ With many forms of collecting there is a certain sameness about the things collected which is apt to produce monotony: with military curios, however, the treasures cover so wide a field that no such drawback can exist. ”

“ The accidental and almost miraculous survival of literary relics of past ages is curious on account of the purely casual manner in which they present themselves from season to season, as well as from the strange hands in which many of them are found—often persons of obscure character and in humble life, who have one, two, or half-a-dozen books of which all had somehow eluded the researches of every collector. ”

“ One of them—the Curator of our famous museum—lacks comeliness of figure, though at moments he can be very impressive. We can therefore recognize him at a distance by means of a certain ungainliness of stride sometimes seen in a man wholly given over to intellectual pursuits. But when he turns and you get a glimpse of his face, you experience at once the scope of mind and charm of spirit which make his countenance a marked one in the metropolis. ”