Staple

“ In its various branches, however, this unnamed sense is required, to a varying degree, perhaps, least of all in the purchasing of staple goods.
For the sake of a more convenient understanding, let us begin by classifying the various needs of the insatiable Macy's into three major divisions: We shall put down staples, as the first of these; luxuries, as the second ”

“ A staple-inserting implement having two opposite jaws arranged with relation to each other, substantially as shown, one of which is provided with a recess, the other with a vertically-channeled staple-guide, an anvil, and a spring, so that, when the jaws are separated, after driving a staple, the guide will be open for the reception of the succeeding staple, substantially as described. ”

“ Since staple characteristics in human nature are repeated everywhere, like staple dry goods and groceries, a thorough knowledge of the group around the stove will be a useful guide to Perkins's oldest in forming acquaintances later in life. ”

“ In English economic history the term "staple" was applied to those towns which were appointed by the king as the centres for the trade of the company of the merchants of the staple. These merchants had a monopoly in the purchase and export of the staple commodities of England, viz. wool, woolfels, leather, tin and lead. The merchants of the staple were the origin of all English trading companies. ”

“ The centre, in each division, contains tables and counters for the display of cloth, cotton, stuff, and linen of all descriptions. The display of divers colours--the commendations bestowed by the seller, and the reluctant assent of the purchaser--the animated eye of the former, and the calculating brow of the latter--the removal of one set of wares, and the bringing on of another--in short, the never-ceasing succession of sounds and sights astonishes the gravity of an Englishman; whose astonishment is yet heightened by the extraordinary good humour which every where prevails. ”

“ For I say this is their use, that as often as any one may wish to assign fulness to empty things, ornament to base things, speech to dumb things, and reason to senseless things, he may, from a little book of emblems, as from an excellently well-prepared hand-book, have what he may be able to impress on the walls of houses, on windows of glass, on tapestry, on hangings, on tablets, vases, ensigns, seals, garments, the table, the couch, the arms, the sword, and lastly, furniture of every kind. ”

“ On reading over that table, one will have really a new and grateful impression of the resources, appliances, ingenuities, and ministrations of civilization for human life. All the varieties of food, of household and farming, mechanical and artistic, tools, of stuffs and garments, of groceries and furniture, of iron, tin, glass, and crockery ware, — fill the specifications in the tables. ”

“ Your broad sky, Giant, Is the shelf of a cupboard; I make bean-stalks, I'm A builder, like yourself, But bean-stalks is my trade, I couldn't make a shelf, Don't know how they're made, Now, a bean-stalk is more pliant— La, what a climb! ”

“ For a leg of a table made only of silver is to them what an iron ring on their finger would be: I therefore cautiously avoid a proud guest, who compares me with himself, and looks with scorn on my paltry estate. ”

“ Every place, like a bit of tapestry, has its right side and its wrong side; and both are true and real,—the wrong side with its rags and tags, and seams and knots, and thrums of worsted, and the right side with its pretty picture. ”

“ Elegance, distinguished simplicity in shapes, done in glass of a single colour, or in one colour with a simple edge in a contrasting shade, or in one colour with a whole nosegay of colours to set it off, appearing literally as flowers or fruit to surmount the stopper of a bottle, the top of a jar, or as decorations on candlesticks. ”

“ Rare tapestries hang upon the walls. The dishes that bespread the table are of silver and gold, and the household, who hasten to receive the parent and strip off his outward disguise, are themselves arrayed like king's children. ”

“ In your table, as in your dress, and in all other things, I wish you to aim at propriety and neatness, or, if your state demands it, elegance, rather than superfluous figure. To go beyond your sphere, either in dress or in the appearance of your table, indicates a greater fault in your character than to be too much within it. It is impossible to enter into the minutiæ of the table; good sense and observation [128] on the best models must form your taste, and a due regard to what you can afford must restrain it. ”

“ The great and wonderful inventiveness and rich variety of this table ware in its thousand forms are therefore the consummation of the incessant search for truth and symmetry and beauty which characterized the early Renaissance period. ”

“ Now if you design to raise a Peal of Bells for Changes, you ought to raise them to a Set-pull, as the most proper for commanding the Notes, and he who is not well skilled to manage his Bell at a Set-pull, will be apt to drop or overturn it, be in a Wood, and fruitlessly toil and moil himself. ”

“ As I glance across my table, I am somewhat distracted by the spectacle of a venerable head whose crown occasionally appears beyond, at about its level. The apparition of a very small hand—whose fingers are bunchy and have the appearance of being slightly webbed—which is frequently lifted above the table in a vain and impotent attempt to reach the inkstand, always affects me as a novelty at each recurrence of the phenomenon. ”

“ The designers of the stamps either blind or in gold must have been in close touch with the designer of printers’ ornaments—initial letters, headings, borders, and the like—if not in some cases identical with them, and to this no doubt we owe that sense of scale and proportion in the ornamentation of the earlier bindings. ”

“ Much, by her measure, for the previous hour, appeared, in connection with this revelation of it, to have happened to her—a quantity expressed in introductions of charming new people, in walks through halls of armour, of pictures, of cabinets, of tapestry, of tea-tables, in an assault of reminders that this largeness of style was the sign of appointed felicity. ”

“ In my first interview with a medium, over twenty-five years ago, loud sounds—not raps, but sounds like the creaking of a wooden mill—were freely produced at request in a small uncovered table in our parlor, when no person was in contact with it or within three feet of it. ”

“ Given a correct eye for color and form and a natural feeling for harmony, Sir William Temple’s sentence is pertinent, “The measure of choosing well is whether a man likes what he has chosen.” Like my paintings, rugs, and etchings, so also my porcelains, bronzes, arms, and armor are pleasing objects for the eye to rest upon; and, ranged upon the shelves and about the apartments, minister equally in the expression and variety they lend to the surroundings. ”

“ Customs, stiff to us, stiff dresses, stiff furniture—types of cast-off fashions, left by accident, and which no one ever meant to preserve—we contemplate with more than good-nature, as having in them the veritable accent of a time, not altogether to be replaced by its more solemn and self-conscious deposits ”

“ Nothing but a quite extraordinary skill could score a carom on that table—a skill that required the nicest estimate of force, distance, and how much to allow for the various slants of the table and the other formidable peculiarities and idiosyncrasies furnished by the contradictions of the outfit. ”

“ I may, feeling that I am not educated in form and in the principles of ornamentation, buy a table with straight and absolutely plain legs, because I know that such a table fulfills the first law of beauty for articles of utility, that of fitness to purpose, and because I prefer not to trust my judgment further ”

“ My Table Book, therefore, is a series of continually shifting scenes—a kind of literary kaleidoscope, combining popular forms with singular appearances—by which youth and age of all ranks may be amused ”

“ And it is association, with this compound appeal, which again and again decides (over and above all questions of use) what material is the best, or the most delightful, to be employed for a given purpose. You choose a material because it makes a decorative covering to mere utility. That beauty of choice in material alone is the beginning of ornament. ”

“ Sometimes the top of a table, or other similarly arranged piece of furniture, is removed by the person wishing to conceal an article; then the leg is excavated, the article deposited within the cavity, and the top replaced. ”

“ I watched the cover all curling up, and little jets of blue flame spouting from the leather binding. Oh, if it were only as easy to burn the past as it is to burn a book! Then nothing was left but sullen-looking grey ashes, with little red points running over them. ”

“ And farther on more cards, cast-off uniforms, women's portraits, tailors' bills, bills of exchange, swords, flowers, blood. What a vast tapestry one can weave with those few broken and tangled threads! What loves, what griefs, what struggles, follies, and disasters one divines and comprehends! ”

“ The ornamentation of buttons, spoons, tableware, and other articles of silver was already practised when the demand for the book-plate arose, so that there were skilful men ready to turn their attention to this new branch of their art. ”

“ Exceedingly beautiful things are made of silver-plated ware, for table service especially, but it is also much used for ornaments, and even statues and statuettes are made of it, as well as a great variety of useful things. ”

“ Yet the room seemed peopled fully; for, on every hand, mirrors that seemed framed in a network of gold, threw back and duplicated the group that stood there, the rich coloring of the draperies, two vases of Malachite and Sevres, the gifts of emperors, and the carpet, where masses of blossoms seemed starting into fresh bloom, wherever a footstep trod them down. ”

“ Similarly, carvers of interior decorations of rooms are begged to be obliging enough, when executing their trophies, not to make a scythe smaller than an hour-glass, a hat or Basque drum larger than a bass-viol, a man’s head smaller than a rose, nor a sickle as big as a rake. ”

“ They fraternize generally, but keep well within their own circles. Kindred tastes attract some; ancient lineage others. There is an ultra-fashionable set, a sporting set, a literary set, an aristocratic set, a rather 'fast' set, a theatrical set—and so on. ”

“ I suppose when people buy their sheets, or their tablecloths, or any other linen, they've a right to mark what they like upon it, haven't they? Well, then? You buy a servant, and you mark what you like upon him, and where's the difference? ”

“ Slade, whose mediumship has convinced many of the most eminent believers in spiritualism, including the famous Zöllner coterie, [4] produces communications on a slate held beneath a table, in answer to questions asked in writing or verbally, sometimes openly and sometimes in folded slips of paper. ”

“ Art.—The art side also may receive due attention in the general proportioning and arrangement of the stores, in the modeling of certain features from clay, as enumerated above, in the making of labels for boxes and cans, in the writing of signs and advertisements, and in the color combinations. These features are to a great extent incidental to other problems just as the use of good [Pg 74] taste is incidental to all the affairs of life and should receive corresponding emphasis. ”

“ On entering the shop, the artist glanced at the inflexible image of king, commander, dame, and allegory, that stood around, on the best of which might have been bestowed the questionable praise that it looked as if a living man had here been changed to wood, and that not only the physical, but the intellectual and spiritual part, partook of the stolid transformation. ”

“ Look at the picture awhile, ye comfortable folks, who take down from your shelves what books you like best at the moment, and then lie back, amid prints and statuettes, to grow wise in an easy-chair, with a blazing fire and a camphine lamp. ”

“ The discovery of the one in the many, the immediate apprehension Page 348 of the fluent tracing of a pattern, a form, or a structure, is intrinsically delightful. The pattern of a tapestry design is as striking and suggestive as the colors themselves. ”

“ Yes; much more fearfully and wonderfully made, already, is the table, as it stands now, nothing but a piece of dead deal wood, than if, as foxes say, and geese believe, spirits could make it dance, or talk to you by rapping on it. ”

“ In the central compartment, between the upper and lower busts, is depicted the Type, or principal subject. It represents the reward of righteousness in heaven; the designer having introduced the Redeemer as bestowing the Crown of Life upon one of the elect Spirits. ”

“ That of the upper group is a distinctive old-style roman, with serifs, and is set in lower-case, while that of the lower group is a plain black modern letter, without serifs, and is set in capitals. The main display should never be lighter in tone than the less important type matter. ”

“ Then both laughed as they turned to the mirror above the mantelpiece, that reflected two faces, which, though different in style, contour, and colour, were both lovely indeed, and the owners thereof felt that they were so. ”

“ Fashions change from one line of collecting to another without in the slightest degree affecting the stability or popularity of collecting as a whole. Precious stones and pearls minister to the pride of the individual, and stamps to his pleasure; and each has its own strong and unshakable hold upon the devotees of fashion and pleasure. ”