Taille

“ If any personal description of me is thought desirable, it may be said, I am in height, six feet, four inches, nearly; lean in flesh, weighing, on an average, one hundred and eighty pounds; dark complexion, with coarse black hair, and gray eyes. ”

“ In like manner, a farmer who is asked the weight of one of his oxen gives a figure which seems much too low, until he explains that he has omitted to estimate the bones! A servant who was asked his height mentioned a measure which was ridiculously inadequate to cover his length, and upon being questioned admitted that he had left out of account all above his shoulders! ”

“ Now, the body, being required to have—whether in length, reckoning from the point of the arm to the prominence of the buttock, or in height, reckoning from the summit of the withers to the ground—two heads and a half; whenever the head, by its geometrical length, shall give, in length or in height, to the body measured more than two and a half times its own length, it will be too short; and if it gives less, it will be too long.
‘In the case in which one of these faults exists there would be no further question of establishing by its geometrical length the proportions of the other parts. ”

“ Why we have the insane delusion that our feet should be small, out of all proportion to our bodies, no one so far as I know can explain. Orators have praised small feet, and poets have sung to them. Fashion plates have depicted them and lovers have sighed for them, and really from want of proper use, from compression and from the consequent arrested development because of their being encased in unyielding leather boxes from early childhood, our feet are much smaller in proportion to our size and weight than they should be. ”

“ Nothing but size! But, to most people, size is everything; wherefore to them the small shells and their beauty are not. Their minuteness hides them as though they were in a far-off and uninhabited isle. ”

“ Paragraph 1 — The measurement of a tallit that is obligated in tzitzit is [the size of a garment] that covers in length and width the head and most of the body of a child who goes out by himself to the marketplace and doesn't need someone watching him. ”

“ Size is considered of more importance than form; and justly so if it is a sine qua non that the foot must be small, because the efforts that are made to diminish its size generally render it deformed. We have before mentioned that to endeavor to diminish the size of the human body in a particular part, is like tying a string round the middle of a pillow; it only makes it larger at the extremities. It is so with the waist, it is so with the foot. If it be crippled in length, or in width across the toes, it spreads over the instep and sides. ”

“ Imagine, if you can, a man weighing all of three hundred pounds, not more than five feet ten-and-one-half inches in height and yet of so lithesome a build that he gave not the least sense of either undue weight or lethargy. ”

“ For my own part I cannot see what poetry there can be in a girl's waist reduced to ten inches less than its proper size, any more than there is in the mangled skull of a Chinook Indian. When I see a figure like that described, I invariably think of what it would look like on the dissecting-table, and probably the same unpleasant idea would occur to any one who is familiar with the natural proportions of the human frame. ”

“ Tight Lacing.—"The waist of well-formed women, of the average height, varies in circumference from twenty-seven to twenty-nine inches; and there is scarcely any difference in its proportional size between male and female. But such is the power of fashion, that the waist is seldom permitted to expand to the dimensions of twenty-five inches; the majority are within twenty-four; thousands are compressed to twenty-two ”

“ Of the few among us who are full six feet high, scarcely any are broad and muscular in proportion to their stature, but look rather like men of the common bulk, run up accidentally to an unusual height; and a man who should measure only six feet two inches, and equally exceed a stout well-set man of the common stature in breadth and muscle, would strike us rather as being of a gigantic race, than as an individual accidentally anomalous ”

“ Without being tall, there was height enough, one would say, to insure the eyes a good view of golden horizons and near heavens, and the arms an easy reach to the honeysuckle clusters or the ripe purple plum hanging low by its own weight. ”

“ Stature.—Among all the measurements relating to the form, the principal one is the stature. It has certain characteristics that are essentially human. What we understand by stature is the height of a living animal, when standing on its feet. Let us compare the stature of one of the higher mammals, a dog for instance, with that of man. The stature of the dog is determined essentially by the length of its legs, while the spinal column is supported in a horizontal position by the legs themselves. ”

“ The height of the stature is taken without the shoes, and it is necessary to state at what hour of the day the measurement is made, because in the morning we are taller (though by only a few millimetres) than we are in the evening. ”

“ Tall—at least six feet-with a well-shaped head set on square shoulders, brown hair inclined to curl, large blue eyes which could be merry or exceedingly grave, I thought him a picture of manly beauty. Good-natured, clever, prosperous, and not yet thirty. ”

“ I am below the average stature for a man, and unusually light for my volume, weighing only 110 pounds stripped from the age of nineteen to twenty-five, after I had attained my maximum height of five feet five inches. ”

“ From ten to fourteen years the stature of girls increases at a uniform rate of two inches per year, except at thirteen, when it is two inches and a half; but the weight increases at a much greater rate. ”

“ If you are of average size and height it is probable that no change will be needed, but if you are shorter or taller than the average it is advisable to adjust the length of the pattern before cutting your material. ”

“ If a man of 5 feet 7 inches give 101⁄2 inches for head and neck, 25 for trunk, and 311⁄2 for fork, what should another give, of 6 feet, or any other height? The approximation of a man's actual measurement to this rule of three determines his pretensions in the way of symmetry; and the inventor of the shibboleth has found it so far to answer, that a figure coming near the rule invariably pleases the eye, and gives the assurance of a handsome man. ”

“ The average difference in civilised races in the stature of men and women at present is about four inches, but twice this difference is very usually found to exist between the male and [Pg 41] female skeletons of the Polished Stone Period in the long barrows. ”

“ For instance, if we are to grade a set of patterns for women's sizes for which the model size pattern is 36, we are to be fully acquainted with the measurements of a size 34 which is the first size below size 36, and also of the various larger sizes, such as sizes 38, 40, 42 and 44. ”

“ Most Systems of proportion, thus far issued, are projected on the breast-measure. It will be evident, on investigating the proportions of the human figure, that a System based only on one size of the body, and that its width, can never lead to the best results. ”

“ If we take a thousand married men whose stature is not less than six feet, and a thousand also who are none of them taller than 5 ft. 8 in., we shall find that the average height of the wives of the former is greater than that of the wives of the shorter men. ”

“ In height five feet four and one half inches, her weight is one hundred and ten pounds. True, her slender feet are small, her limbs shapely; but her arms are full long, her expressive hands rather large, her shoulders narrow, her bust that of a young girl. ”

“ Another object of dress is, to encrease the size of our figure, and to take up more room [77] in the world than Nature seems to have allotted us. We desire to enlarge our dimensions by swelling out our cloaths and raising our heels; but how bulky soever our dress may be, our vanities still exceed them. The largeness of the doctor’s wig arises from the same pride as the smallness of the beau’s queue. ”

“ I believe, when I think of it, that you are the biggest man I've ever known—and by that I don't mean in height— for I have seen men with a greater number of physical inches. Inches, somehow, have very little to do with the impression—and so has muscle, strong as yours is. ”

“ The proportions of the perfect human figure are strictly mathematical. The whole figure is six times the length of the foot. Whether the form be slender or plump, this rule holds good. Any deviation from it is a departure from the highest beauty of proportion. The Greeks made all their statues according to this rule. The face, from the highest point of the forehead, where the hair begins, to the end of the chin, is one-tenth of the whole stature. ”

“ A small man weighs one hundred and twenty five pounds. How many men of that size, or near that size, can you recall, who have figured among the solid, great men in the world's history? We can recall two or three brilliant poets, perhaps as many celebrated orators, who were small men; but when we look among the men who have illustrated the great, grand, solid, enduring traits of human character, in any of the important departments of life, we find that, almost without exception, they are above the average size. ”

“ Or if it be only meant that we think of a particular height, which must be a precise, positive, determinate idea, even this supposition may in the same way be shewn to be exceedingly fallacious, and an inversion of the natural order of our ideas. For take any given height of a man, whether tall, short, or middle-sized, and let that height be as visible as you please, yet the actual height to which it amounts must be made up of the length of the different parts, the head, the face, the neck, the body, limbs, &c. ”

“ I always like to look as tall as possible. Five feet four is not a very great height; so, to give the appearance of another inch I have my skirts made as long as possible; that is to say, they just don't sweep the pavement, and that is all. ”

“ Out of a million or more of babies born one, at least, is destined not to reach adult stature. Normal in every way and perfectly proportioned, this millionth babe stops growing, while yet a babe, and thereafter not an inch is added to his stature and very little to his Weight. ”

“ For God’s sake, Ladies, be not so careful to make you seem of taller stature and other than you are; but rather look to the beauty of your legs, the which be so fair and fine, at any rate with some of you. ”

“ Among women somewhat younger, as indeed among men, the American observer whose recollection takes him back twenty-five years must note a more hopeful change, a very decided average increase of stature, not merely in height but in general development. ”

“ The men will average in stature five feet four or five inches; the women less in proportion, although there are exceptions to this rule among them, some being over six feet in height, and others are decided dwarfs. ”

“ It must be borne in mind, when dealing with this question, that height and breadth of shoulder have much to do with proportionate slenderness of waist. A lady who is tall and wide-shouldered would appear very neatly shaped with a waist laced to twenty or twenty-one inches, whilst with a slight, narrow form of figure that size would carry the appearance of much clumsiness with it. ”

“ By having all lasts, diagrams, and patterns, made by the scale, and all proportions of fulness of lasts regularly graded, making the children’s much the fullest in width, owing to the greater degree of roundness of the foot, and wider in proportion, on account of rapid growth. ”

“ In other words, it is of fundamental importance to determine the reciprocal relation, in the stature, between the bust and the lower limbs, that is, between the height of the bust and the total height of the body. ”

“ The subtraction of the height of the heel of the shoe and the weight of the clothing from the original height and weight as taken, make these factors in the measurement of the Cubans comparable with the students and teachers of several of the colleges for men and women in the United States. ”

“ In order to give us a notion of the huge frame of this people, they dragged forth a bone, or rather a thigh bone, of one of those giants, which was very strong, and measured the length of a man of good stature. ”

“ It's your size, I reckon, but you're the kind of chap who can put on a turned-down collar with your evening clothes, or a tie that's been twisted through a wringer, and not look ridiculous. It's the rest of us that seem fops because we're properly dressed. ”

“ The idea of size is necessary to a correct apprehension of objects. To talk of yards, feet, or inches, to a child, unless they are shown, is just as intelligible as miles, leagues, or degrees. Let there then be two five-feet rods, a black foot and a white foot alternately, the bottom foot marked in inches, and let there be a horizontal piece to slide up and down to make various heights. ”

“ Almost everything seemed to be horizontal, but such things as stood perpendicular in this flat world gained a gigantic height. The two human beings looked at each other in amazement that such a tall man and woman existed. ”

“ Height, bodily stature, offers a very good analogy for the case we have just been discussing, because it is obvious that it must depend on a large number of different factors, a man's size being due to the sum total of the sizes of a great number of bones, ligaments, tissues, etc. ”

“ A fine woman with a handsome figure (say five feet five inches in height) should measure twenty-six inches round the waist, and in later life twenty-eight. Of course, a very small or very thin girl would naturally measure less. ”