Rocking chair

“ The chair rocked itself down the hill, from around the edge of the big rock."
"You mean the wind blew it," said Chimney with a smile. "A chair can't rock itself down hill."
"Oh, yes it can! This chair can!" cried Nat. "This is our chair, Racky, that ran away. That's the chair we have been looking for!" He was all excited, and so were the other children.
"Yes, that's Racky!" echoed Weezie.
The children crowded to the open door, through which the late afternoon wind blew little flakes of snow.
"It's your Grandmother's rocking chair!" added Rod. "Sure it is!" ”

“ Then came the first click-click, jiggity-click of a rocking-chair, which Nance had bought for me "when you are tired, dear"—and has used ever since herself. I did not regret this, for it left the deep-seated chintz-covered one free. They are useless things, anyway: a man cannot go to sleep on a rocking-chair, or strike a match under the seat, or stand on it to put up a picture—or, in fact, do any of the things for which chairs are really designed. ”

“ Some rocking chairs are so constructed that when the person occupying it gives a hard tilt backward, the chair tips over or dangerously near it. A rubber-tipped screw turned into the under side of each rocker, near the rear end, will prevent the chair from tipping too far back. ”

“ The fact is that it is not the rocking that makes a rocking chair comfortable, but the position of the seat of the chair, with its downward slope toward the back. The rocking chair is comfortable for just the same reason that the ordinary dining chair is made more comfortable when a man tilts it back upon its hind legs. The reason is that in this position one does not tend to slide forward off the chair, the weight of the body naturally carrying the hips to the back of the chair, where it is supported naturally. ”

“ Another young gentleman friend of mine—for I am bound to admit it was youth that profited most by the advice and counsel of The Amateur: I suppose as one grows older one grows less daring, less industrious—made a rocking-chair, according to the instructions of this book, out of a couple of beer barrels. From every practical point of view it was a bad rocking-chair. It rocked too much, and it rocked in too many directions at one and the same time. I take it, a man sitting on a rocking-chair does not want to be continually rocking. ”

“ So it happened that no one really saw the rocking chair get through the hole in the fence, which trick Racky did a few minutes later. It was hard work for the chair to escape from the yard. If it had been a kitchen chair, with legs that had no curved rockers fast to them, it would have been easier.
"But one can never succeed unless he tries," said Racky to himself. ”

“ It would be impossible to get on anywhere, in America, without a rocking-chair. ”

“ On this were bundles, of odd sizes, she guessed, from the different bulges in the old cover over the whole, a piece of yellowed, gay-figured percale, or muslin of a sort.
A rickety rocking-chair, of modern make, and a tall, gray-painted cupboard were the only pieces of furniture that Jannet could see. It was quite evident that her uncle had had all the valuable furniture of an older day put into use, keeping no useless articles to fill the attic. Even the old, old cradle stood in the old kitchen, not far from the old, old settle, with its rockers, too. ”

“ Nothing but shafts are needed, and a common rocking-chair, with a foot-board nailed across216 the front rocker, on which to rest the feet. The chair is then slipped along back to the axle of the wheels, so that the shafts, when raised, are under the seat, and lift it up. In this way an invalid can be rolled through yards and gardens with very little effort, and with great comfort and relief to the imprisoned sufferer, who perhaps can ride in no other way. ”

“ In your rocking-chair, by your window dreaming, shall you long, alone. In your rocking-chair, by your window, shall you dream such happiness as you may never feel. ”

“ A kind of rocker much in vogue is a medley of young banisters, a sort of improvisation on a turning-lathe. When new this chair emits a peculiar creaking sound. In the course of a few weeks it loosens up till quite supple, so that, in rocking, the various rods perform a complicated piston motion. This process continues till gradually the chair reaches the stage where at every rock it comes apart and puts itself together again—or almost together. ”

“ Under them, the long line of rocking-chairs in which a quarter of a mile of ladies used to sit and gossip together stretches emptily away. The wind pushes against the tall backs of the chairs, and they rock softly to and fro, as if the ghosts of the gossipers invisibly filled them, and still inaudibly babbled on. ”

“ A heavy man is often put to great inconvenience because the chairs at his disposal are too flimsy to bear his weight. There are countless stories told of the Rev. Phillips Brooks, and men of his build, who dare not laugh at a dinner party lest their chairs resolve themselves into kindling wood at the first mirthful shake. In my own parlor there is one chair deep, broad, and of marvelous strength, bought with an eye to the needs of a friendly neighbor of grand dimensions. ”

“ The arm-tops, through constant use, are smooth and shine like unto burnished bronze. The supports and front legs are twisted in good Jacobean manner, and the broad stretcher is carved with two long feathery, flowing acanthus-leaves curling round gracefully at the tips as if under pressure of a strong breeze, and crouching within their embrace nestles a rose in ambush. The chair has been mothered with lifelong care, and the bloom and beauty of age sit upon it like a crown of glory. ”

“ My Protean easy-chair is a chair so all over bejointed, behinged, and bepadded, everyway so elastic, springy, and docile to the airiest touch, that in some one of its endlessly-changeable accommodations of back, seat, footboard, and arms, the most restless body, the body most racked, nay, I had almost added the most tormented conscience must, somehow and somewhere, find rest. Believing that I owed it to suffering humanity to make known such a chair to the utmost, I scraped together my little means and off to the World's Fair with it. ”

“ If those old fellows in the Middle Ages had known how to put chairs together as neatly and strongly as some of our modern furniture,—such as mine, for instance, which you know well enough is just as strong as any furniture need be,—don't you suppose they would have done it? Of course they would. The trouble about the construction of a chair like that is that it makes your own construction too evident. ”

“ She saw a chair that patient, loving hands had made from what the winter-locked forest had provided, seat and back covered with deerskin cushions, a chair that opened its arms to her as though, still keeping its identity as a part of her woodland, it were welcoming her to a world where love's heart beat close to nature's. She saw that the hard floor had disappeared under freshly strewn pine needles and under the two big bear skin rugs which sprawled mightily before the table and before the fireplace. She saw another chair, Wayne's chair it was going to be, because it was such a monster. ”

“ The sofas were large and roomy, the settees delightful, the arm-chairs and wing chairs regular havens of rest, and when one adds the comfort which modern upholstery gives, there is little left to desire. Even the regulation side-chair of the period, which some think was the only chair in very common use, is absolutely comfortable for its purpose. Lounging was much less in vogue then than nowadays and the old cabinet-makers realized that one must be comfortable when sitting up as well as when taking one's ease. ”

“ Chairs are still heavy and carved more or less richly. Two typical specimens appear in Plate XII. As shown 113in these examples, the seats and backs were often covered with stamped leather, velvet, silk, or some woollen material and ornamented with tassels. The covers are tacked to the frame by means of large-headed nails that also form part of the decoration. A chair and footstool by Vredemann de Vries, of very characteristic model, are shown in Fig. 23. The chair is three-cornered, with a triangular seat, and the legs are connected with straining-rails. ”

“ I never would change thee, my cane-bottomed chair.
'Tis a bandy-legged, high-shouldered, worm-eaten seat,
With a creaking old back, and twisted old feet;
But since the fair morning when FANNY sat there,
I bless thee and love thee, old cane-bottomed chair.
If chairs have but feeling in holding such charms,
A thrill must have passed through your withered old arms! ”

“ Genuine examples of chairs of Elizabethan and Early Stuart days show the wear of the feet of the sitters. The same wear is observable in the lower rail of old tables. In later Stuart days the stretcher has left its place at the bottom, between the two front legs. Since its use as a foot-rest, owing to carpeted floors, is gone, it is found either joining the legs diagonally, or higher up as an ornament with carved front. In the eighteenth century it has almost disappeared altogether.
By permission of Messrs. Harold G. Lancaster & Co.
WILLIAM AND MARY CHAIR.
Cane back. ”

“ Of all the pieces of furniture in the house, chairs are the ones most used, and, as they are subjected to hard usage, [269] they should be well constructed and the joints carefully made.
In the plain chair shown in Fig. 1 the front legs are sixteen inches high, the back supports are thirty-four inches high, and all of them are one and three-quarter inches square. All the side-rails and the four that support the seat are two inches wide and three-quarters of an inch in thickness, so that the laps cut in the corner-posts (Fig. 2, A and B) will correspond in width and depth. ”

“ A bigger man might find ample accommodation in it. His ancestor, now pictured upon the wall, with all his English beef about him, used hardly to present a front extending from elbow to elbow of this chair, or a base that would cover its whole cushion. But there are better chairs than this,—mahogany, black walnut, rosewood, spring-seated and damask-cushioned, with varied slopes, and innumerable artifices to make them easy, and obviate the irksomeness of too tame an ease,—a score of such might be at Judge Pyncheon’s service. ”

“ The corners of the back were always rounded. The cabriole legs were often carved with a shell on the knees, the acanthus being used in the more elaborate pieces of furniture, and ended chiefly in a club foot. Stretchers became less common, but if they were used were pushed back and did not form such an important part of the chair design. Seats were broader at the front than at the back, and all furniture showed a real desire for comfort and convenience. Marquetry and lacquer were both in great favor, and there are wonderful examples of both reproduced, but especially lacquer. ”

“ The natural and the graceful curve of the back is not the curve of a straight-backed chair. Straight-backed chairs are instruments of torture, and are more likely to make a girl crooked than to make her straight. ”

“ Turning now to the chairs, we find the heavy wooden chairs, such as are shown on Plate VII., Nos. 1, 2, 3, and 4, and No. 2 on Plate VIII., are giving place to newer forms. One of the most typical is the “low leather” chair, which we have already spoken of in the preceding chapter. This was generally covered with leather put on with large brass nails, and was sometimes also decorated with fringe. Genoa velvet, silk, serge, needlework, etc., were also used for covering this form of chair. A square straining-rail usually connects the legs close to the floor. ”

“ The seat and back of this chair can be covered with denim, leather, or other suitable fabric drawn over some curled hair or cotton that can be used for padding, and fastened down around the edges with large flat-headed tacks or upholstery nails. Shellac, varnish, or paint may be used to give the woodwork a good appearance, and when completed this chair will surely be the pride of the boy who made it. ”

“ The leather is fastened to the frame with large brass nails, and that part of the oak frame which is exposed is turned work. On many of these chairs there are three little metal ornaments on the curved top. In this example two are lost. Besides the carving on the front brace, a pattern which was often adopted and copied by English and Dutch cabinet-makers, this chair shows well that form of foot which came to be known as the "Spanish foot." ”

“ Now the latter is without doubt the strongest seat for its weight which has been invented in modern times. It is one of the few successes in chair-making which can claim to be the direct outcome of scientific methods. It has absolutely no ancestors whatever, and can attach itself to no tradition. It is a bald product of the application of science to furniture, and when the Austrian inventor finally made it perfect he had achieved utility, nothing more, nothing less. The bent-wood chair is in pretty nearly every concert hall in the world. ”

“ There has been much criticism of American men on the ground that they are inclined to sit down on the small of the back. They slide forward in the chair, with the back bent over and the shoulders humped forward. But the fault really lies with the construction of the chair. The back of a chair does not fit the human back, and the seat is not at the right angle to rest the body. ”

“ The splat, with its varying forms, denotes the date of the chair. From 1740 to 1770 the form with cabriole legs and with finely ornamented fiddle splat was at its best. We illustrate a sufficient number of specimens to show how graceful and perfectly well balanced these chairs had become. In contemplating pieces remarkable for the highest style, it must be admitted that their artistry and their simple unaffected sense of comfort do make a direct appeal to those who are willing to recognise fine qualities in minor furniture. ”