Luxury goods

“ In regretting the depopulation of the country, I inveigh against the increase of our luxuries; and here also I expect the shout of modern politicians against me. For twenty or thirty years past, it has been the fashion to consider luxury as one of the greatest national advantages, and all the wisdom of antiquity, in that particular, as erroneous. ”

“ Inside, every American luxury is at command. You move noiselessly on deep-piled carpets; the news-stand is heaped with the latest magazines and novels; there is a little row of shops where you can buy hats and frocks, jewellery and bric-à-brac, at fifty per cent. ”

“ We must add also to this parasitic class those who are engaged in luxury trades—with the caveat that it is exceedingly difficult to draw a strict frontier line between necessity and luxury on the one hand, and on the other, between luxury and the thing that may minister to the legitimate comfort, the health, the beauty and the general enrichment of life. ”

“ But he had lived too long in the atmosphere of luxury, and too close to the master adventurers of that speculative day. Luxury had become a second nature to him; contact with men who could sell him out twenty times over had brought him the parching hunger for money. ”

“ Luxury has as many and as bewitching charms on your side of the ocean as on this; and luxury, wherever she goes, effaces from human nature the image of the Divinity. If I had power I would forever banish and exclude from America all gold, silver, precious stones, alabaster, marble, silk, velvet, and lace. ”

“ Luxury has grown on us since the thousands of wealthy idlers who draw their money from trade began to make the stream of lavish expenditure turn into a series of rushing rapids. The flow of wasted wealth is no longer like the equable gliding of the full Thames ”

“ At first we cast our dull eyes over the furniture and involuntarily begin to calculate the value of all this bronze, these carpets, Venetian mirrors, etc.
“A trifle!” we agree, and with peculiar self-satisfaction we lose ourselves in the contemplation of our own billions, of our power and our remarkable wisdom and character. Our bliss increases with each additional glass. With peculiar pleasure we wallow in the cheap luxury of the hotel, and—think of it!—I am actually beginning to have a liking for bronze, carpets, glass and stones. My Puritan Toppi condemns luxury. ”

“ We may consider luxury from three points of view: First, from the moral point, as concerning the individual; within what limits is the perfect satisfaction of wants useful in the normal development of the human faculties? Second, from the economical point; to what extent is luxury a help or a hindrance to the increase of wealth? Third, from the point of right and justice; is luxury compatible with the equitable division of products, and with the general principle that the remuneration of each person ought to be proportional to the amount of useful labor that he has performed? ”

“ Luxury has outstripped nomenclature.
The covering ought, in my judgment, to show that which is covered to be better than itself, as the image is superior to the temple, the soul to the body, and the body to the clothes. But now, quite the contrary, the body of these ladies, if sold, would never fetch a thousand Attic drachms. Buying, as they do, a single dress at the price of ten thousand talents, they prove themselves to be of less use and less value than cloth. Why in the world do you seek after what is rare and costly, in preference to what is at hand and cheap? ”

“ The reasons and counter-reasons advanced by those writers apply not only to luxury but to the lights and shades of high civilization in general. When a political economist declares for or against luxury in general, he resembles a doctor who should declare for or against the nerves in general. There has been luxury in every country and in every age. Among a healthy people, luxury is also healthy, an essential element in the general health of the nation. ”

“ Therefore luxury advances. The syllogism is complete and sound; there is fault in neither major nor minor premiss; and we have therefore arrived at the ultimate conclusion that luxury is on the move—that is, has increased. ”

“ From this point of view all the products of human labor have been, and in turn have ceased to be, articles of luxury, since we mean by luxury nothing but a relation of succession, whether chronological or commercial, in the elements of wealth. ”

“ And so at last, when the muscles of our thighs refused to strengthen our legs for the ascent of another foot, we would turn our backs to the slant and sink gratefully into the only real luxury in the world.
For be it known that real luxury cannot be bought; it must be worked for. I refer to luxury as the exquisite savour of a pleasant sensation. The keenest sense-impressions are undoubtedly those of contrast. ”

“ There is nothing that luxury can desire which does not find its way to these remote isles, from the newest scent to the finest dress materials—not even excepting silks and velvets, though for whose benefit these are imported, passes my comprehension. ”

“ Nor does this luxury exist only on the surface: in some establishments all the table service is of gold—of solid gold the vessels for perfumed water, of gold the fringe of the satin napkins—while brilliants and precious stones glitter from the various utensils, the coffee-cups, goblets, pipes, table-linen, and fans. ”

“ Could Luxury be confined to the Palaces of the Great, the Society would not perhaps be much affected with it; at least, the Mischiefs, which I am now intending to obviate can never be the Consequence. ”

“ It is the taste for luxury which in our day, in the absence of religious principles, sustains the social movement and reveals to the lower classes their dignity. The Academy of Moral and Political Sciences clearly understood this when it chose luxury as the subject of one of its essays, and I applaud its wisdom from the bottom of my heart. ”

“ Luxury, so far as it reaches the poor, will do good to the race of people; it will strengthen and multiply them. Sir, no nation was ever hurt by luxury; for, as I said before, it can reach but to a very few. ”

“ The opposite school replies to these arguments that luxury is an indispensable stimulus to progress; that really all economic progress is first manifested in the form of a need of luxury, and that luxury therefore is a necessary phase of its development. ”

“ As a general rule we may be sure that we shall spend our money for what we most earnestly crave. If it be luxury and display then it will melt into costly viands and soft clothing, handsome dwellings and rich furniture. ”

“ The graceful styles and high finish to be seen at many of our stores, and in our recently furnished houses, illustrate a progress in elegance, luxury, and taste, not dreamed of by the last generation. And in all these things it is observable that the advance is in cheapness as well as in beauty. ”

“ They possess themselves every profusion of luxury, in articles of plate and sculpture, in furniture of beds, tripods, and other household embellishments, far superior in degree to any thing that is seen in Europe: their expence of living rivals the magnificence of princes: their houses are decorated with pillars glistening with gold and silver: their doors are crowned with vases and beset with jewels: the interior of their houses corresponds with the beauty of their outward appearance, and all the riches of other countries are here exhibited in a variety of profusion. ”

“ They sometimes lose, but oftentimes realize large fortunes. The appearance of these stores is captivating to the fancy, and many of them would be ornaments [pg 427] to any of the larger cities or towns of the east. The most expensive articles of luxury and dress are to be found in them, and in these distant parts, such property commands a price which would startle and quite shake the nerves of a prince; but, when the people can obtain the money, they purchase everything which their fancy dictates. ”

“ The consumption of the proprietor has been styled luxury, in opposition to useful consumption. From what has just been said, we see that great luxury can prevail in a nation which is not rich,—that poverty even increases with luxury, and vice versâ. ”

“ But works of art, like the precious stones and metals, have come to be the conventionally accepted standards of luxury, the everywhere recognised insignia of the aristocracy of wealth. So I have them, and add to my collection steadily just as I add to my collection of finely bound books that no one ever opens. What slaves of convention and ostentation we are!
“What’s become of the Corot that used to hang there?” I asked, suspiciously, because I had had so many experiences of my family’s trifling with my possessions. ”

“ It is true that "record prices" have been paid for every luxury, that the sales of furriers and jewellers have been unprecedented in the annals of our commerce, that the eager buying of rare books, pictures, and curios, flung on the markets by the destitution of Europe, has never been surpassed. ”

“ A small increase of industry in every American, male and female, with a small diminution of luxury, would produce a sum far superior to all we can hope to beg or borrow from all our friends in Europe. ”

“ Neither husband nor wife has the remotest idea of modern luxury. They retain a livery only seen elsewhere on the stage, and cling to old fashions in plate, furniture, and equipages, as in language and manner of life. ”

“ All this proceeds from the superfluity of riches and taste of imitation, not from the real allurements of ease and taste of luxury, as every one must feel, who has conversed at all with the great and rich. Fashion, which I understand here to be a synonimous term for imitation, leads most people into superfluous expence, which is so far from being an article of luxury, that it is frequently a load upon the person who incurs it. ”

“ A question will always remain: What is unreasonable luxury? That is, of course, a question which each person must answer for himself, but anything, as I view the matter, is a reprehensible luxury when its production results in the consumption of wealth or attraction of labour which is needed for more urgent national purposes. ”

“ If you live in an atmosphere of luxury, luxury is yours whether your money pays for it, or another’s. ”

“ It would be luxury for a student to own two coats, if he must go without a dictionary to buy the second.
It is easy to settle the luxuries of others, but less easy to so define luxury that the public can agree in the definition. ”

“ If the Pilgrim Fathers themselves had had luxury before their eyes, they would have desired to have it; and they would have been right. Luxury is, in itself, a great good. Luxury is delicious fare,—of any and every kind: and He who bestowed it meant all men to have it. ”

“ The proximity of the sea likewise administers to maritime cities a multitude of pernicious incentives to luxury, which are either acquired by victory or imported by commerce; and the very agreeableness of their position nourishes many expensive and deceitful gratifications of the passions. ”

“ SECTION, II OF LUXURY. We are far from being agreed on the application of the term luxury, or on that degree of its meaning which is consistent with national prosperity, or with the moral rectitude of our nature. It is sometimes employed to signify a manner of life which we think necessary to civilization, and even to happiness. ”

“ Since luxury is wholly relative, every want or need is, on its first appearance in the world, regarded as superfluous; first, because no one has hitherto wanted it, and secondly, because its production probably requires a considerable amount of labor, on account of man’s inexperience and the inevitable gropings in the dark that attend all beginnings. The decencies of life today and even the necessities were once regarded as luxuries—chimneys in houses, shoes, forks and knives, linen for the body, bath tubs, etc. ”

“ The direction which luxury takes in times when civilization is advanced, is towards the real, healthy and tasteful enjoyment of life, rather than an inconvenient display. This tendency is exceedingly well expressed by the English word comfort, and it is in modern England that the luxury of the second period has found it happiest development. It is found side by side with frugality; and it frequently even looks like a return to the unaffected love of nature. ”

“ Luxury, it is said, is a matter of contrast; this man’s scale of such things possibly began at a different point in New York; here in Canada, after a day’s heavy labor in portage and canoe, after coming back grimy and sweating and black-fly-bitten and footsore—after those things, a plunge in the lake and dry flannel clothes and a gray blanket [Pg 23] and a stump realized luxury. So he sighed contentedly and shifted his leg to feel how comfortably the muscles ached in repose, as he drew his crowning happiness out of his pocket, that long brown happiness called a cigar. ”

“ In France, luxury is the expression of the man, the reproduction of his ideas, of his personal poetry; it portrays the character, and gives, between lovers, a precious value to every little attention by keeping before them the dominant thought of the being loved. But English luxury, which at first allured me by its choiceness and delicacy, proved to be mechanical also. The thousand and one attentions shown me at Clochegourde Arabella would have considered the business of servants ”

“ Luxury, while variously defined, involves always the thought of great consumption of wealth for unessential pleasures. [Pg 386] It is not possible to define luxury absolutely; it is a relative term. Those opposed to it condemn it in their definition of it, as, for example: "an excessive consumption of wealth," or "devoting a relatively large amount of wealth to the satisfaction of a relatively superfluous want." ”

“ Commercial Prosperityand ruffs, the court gallant with his dyed beard and huge breeches, the idle apprentices quick to riot, the poor poets in prison for debt—these and how many more are familiar to every reader of the Elizabethan drama. As often in periods of commercial prosperity, luxury became fantastic. Men sold their acres to put costly garments on their backs. ”