Writing desk

“ Then there are the small desks made by modern furniture-makers, just large enough to hold a blotting-pad, a paper rack, and a pair of candlesticks. There is always a shallow drawer for writing materials. Such a desk may be decorated to match the chintzes of any small bedroom.
If it isn't possible for you to have a desk in each guest-room, there should be a little writing-room somewhere apart from the family living-room. ”

“ The writing desks are generally long sloping shelves pinned up against the walls as high as the breasts of the pupils who sit before them. The seats are without backs and from eighteen inches to two feet high. Sometimes we have a master's desk, but awkwardly constructed, for the most part too high for the sitting posture and too low for the standing one.... We have no blackboards, no maps and no illustrative apparatus of any kind. ”

“ To give a good writing surface, a piece of heavy cardboard was fastened to the writing bed with thumb tacks and may be renewed whenever necessary. The inside of the desk was fitted with filing compartments arranged to care for a large variety of shop forms and stationery. An inkwell holder made of a strip of sheet metal was fixed to the end of the desk and the bottle suspended in it, there being space for additional bottles also. The hinged lid is provided with a hasp and padlock. When not in use the desk may be tilted upward and locked against the wall with small catches. ”

“ I installed it in my writing desk, and fastened it with one screw to the back of the desk inside the pigeonhole. When collapsed the arm measures 71⁄2 in. from the fastened end to the front end of the socket, leaving only the globe protruding. Extended, it measures 161⁄2 in. The lamp cord is taken through a hole in the back of the desk. ”

“ Some children carry the turning of the copy-book too far, the direction of the lines becomes uncomfortable for the arm in the normal posture of writing, the right elbow is pushed on to the desk, the right shoulder follows, moves forward and rises, the body supports itself with the right side against the writing desk, the spinal column is turned towards the left about its axis of length and shows an arched curve towards the right, while the left arm entirely slips down from the desk, on which only the fingers of the left hand still find a sorry support. ”

“ Why is a raven like a writing-desk? ”

“ Only the desk-lamp was lit, so that his face was in shadow, but his two hands, stretched out on the blotter in front of him, lay in a pool of light, and I caught the gleam of his gold signet ring.
He was not writing or working. He seemed to be thinking. I watched him in a fascinated sort of way. ”

“ She sat in front of a desk, writing, in a dilatory fashion. Every little while she glanced back over her shoulder at the clock upon the mantel, then out the window down the willow-shaded drive, then back again to her pen. ”

“ Oh, yes; he used to keep it in a drawer of his writing desk. Not that I was one to pry; but he didn't try to hide the thing. Sometimes the drawer was left half open, and I couldn't help seeing what was in it, when I was putting the room to rights. ”

“ Not infrequently it happens that a desk is too high for comfortable writing. Any discomfort that is continuous and makes itself felt intrusively during occupation with other things, will have an unfortunate effect. ”

“ The English-speaking people of the 18th century were amazingly fond of pieces of furniture which served a double or triple purpose. The bureau—the word is the French generic appellation for a desk—derives its name from the material with which it was originally covered (Fr. bure, woollen cloth) . It consists of an upright carcass sloping inward at the top, and provided with long drawers below. The upper part is fitted with small drawers and pigeon-holes, and often with secret places, and the writing space is formed by a hinged slab supported on runners ”

“ Red Gold Plated Screw Pencil Charm. Price 50 cents.
Read carefully the conditions on the first page of Premium List.
[19]
STUDENTS’ COMBINATION DESK AND BLACKBOARD.
One new Study and Writing Desk given for new subscriptions amounting to $3.50.
The inside of the Lid is covered with prepared silicate, thus forming a perfect blackboard. This Desk is for family use. It is a convenient addition to the furniture of a sitting-room. It can be used by any member of the family for reading, writing and study purposes. It is the right size to use with the ordinary house chair. ”

“ Not hurrying over the job, I had the fittings knocked together in contriving ways under my own inspection, and here was her bed in a berth with curtains, and there was her reading-table, and here was her writing-desk, and elsewhere was her books in rows upon rows, picters and no picters, bindings and no bindings, gilt-edged and plain, just as I could pick ’em up for her in lots up and down the country, North and South and West and East, Winds liked best and winds liked least, Here and there and gone astray, Over the hills and far away. ”

“ The straight upright position of the body then must be insisted upon, the arms of the writer being freely and equally placed on the desk–at what distance from the sides the elbows are to be, will be regulated by the relative heights of the desk and seat–the left hand steadying the book or paper in use. Every advantage must be taken of the back-rest (where it exists) as it is calculated not only to yield support and diminish or prevent weariness, but also to impart confidence to the writer and strength to the writing. ”

“ I can speak to you without a photograph! I am often with you, very often.
He's taking Feda into a room with a desk in it; too big for a desk, it must be a table. A sort of a desk, a pretty big one. A chair is in front of it, not a chair like that, a high up chair, more wooden, not woolly stuff; and the light is falling on to the desk; and you are sitting there with a pen or pencil in your hand; you aren't writing much, but you are looking through writing, and making bits of writing on it; you are not doing all the writing yourself, but only bits on it. Raymond is standing at the back of you ”

“ Tables for reading or writing at are best made in the form of a double desk, which gives readers the most convenience, and affords an effective but unobtrusive means of mutual oversight. The framing and rails should be as shallow as possible, so as not to interfere with the comfort of readers, and elaborately turned or carved legs should be avoided, because certain [13] to harbour dust, and likely to form resting-places for feet. Tables with flat tops resting on central pedestals, and without side rails, are very useful in general reading-rooms, the free leg space being a decided advantage. ”

“ The light should be abundant, and should enter from the left. In writing he should sit upright and square to the desk. The desk itself should be inclined, and there should be a due proportion between the height of the desk and the bench or stool on which the child is sitting. ”

“ In other words, the writer, while engaged in writing in large, heavy books, must adjust himself to the position of the books. Should the correspondent or bill clerk perform his work while standing, he would assume the same as the sitting position—squarely fronting the desk. ”

“ A table stood in the middle of the sitting room. Near one of the walls, that adjoining the hall, was a desk supplied with writing materials. It was prevented from standing flush against the wall by a projection of the baseboard, and Nick quickly attached the dictograph to the back of the desk, well out of sight. ”

“ Round the room is a settle, raised above [314] the floor on blocks at intervals. The seat is probably a chest, as in the settles described above in the Vatican Library.
The last picture (fig. 155) in this series of illustrations represents what I like to call a scholar's room, at the beginning of the fifteenth century [545] . The owner of the apartment is busily writing at a desk supported on a trestle-table. He holds a stylus in his left hand, and a pen in his right. The ink-horn he is using is inserted into the desk. ”

“ Then slowly, she moves back to the desk, drops the cards into a drawer and locks it. She sits brooding at the desk and the open paper before her seems to fascinate her. As if in a dream she picks up a pencil. A creative look comes into her eyes. Resting her chin on her left arm, she begins slowly to write, murmuring to herself. ”

“ “The chief qualification of ninety-nine per cent of all editors is failure. They have failed as writers. Don’t think they prefer the drudgery of the desk and the slavery to their circulation and to the business manager to the joy of writing. They have tried to write, and they have failed. And right there is the cursed paradox of it. Every portal to success in literature is guarded by those watch-dogs, the failures in literature. ”

“ An old, flat-topped desk sat near the front window, a swivel chair before it. Along the wall above the desk were several rows of shelving with paste-board boxes and paper piled neatly up. Calendars, posters, and other specimens of the printer’s art covered the walls. In the next room was another desk. Piles of advertising electrotypes, empty forms, and papers filled the corners. The composing room was in the rear. Everything was in order here; type cases, stands, forms. There were a proof press, some galley racks, a printing press, with a forlorn-looking gasolene engine near it. ”

“ On the continent, where the interest excited has been of the deepest character, Doctors of Philosophy and of Medicine have vied with each other in efforts to evolve the most perfect and effective desk possible for school use. The almost unanimous verdict is in favour of a low desk that shall permit the arms of the writer to rest naturally thereon, when he is sitting erect, without either raising or depressing the shoulders, and although this end is seldom actually and individually attained in large schools it can be approximated to very nearly. ”

“ The alcove curtains were drawn back, the cheerful sunshine poured in, glittering on the dark polished wood of the desk, on the yellow-covered books, on the pretty little inlaid chair which stood beside the desk. ”

“ In front of this table is a desk of peculiar form; the lower part resembles a reversed cone, and the upper part a second cone of smaller diameter, so as to leave space enough between the two bases for a ledge to rest books on. Round the base of the desk three quaint lions do duty as feet. These lions occur again beneath the frame of the picture, and may be connected with a former possessor of the manuscript. The pedestal of the desk is a twisted column, which, like the base, and indeed the whole structure, looks as though it were made of brass. ”

“ The sun shone gaily in with never a hint of tragedy, lighting up that bent figure in the arm-chair, and bringing into pitiless prominence details that should have been cloaked decently in shadow, from the drops of moisture on the drawn brow to the hands clenched white beneath the edge of the desk. ”

“ When the proper end of your day has come, she hovers over your desk, and, if you are careless of the time, she breathes a misty breath upon your eyelids, and loads your pen with an invisible weight; the shadow of her gray wings dims your page, and her throbbing hand upon your forehead admonishes you of her presence. ”

“ If the room is large enough, a secretary after an Eighteenth Century model will be a beautiful and distinguished piece of furniture. I have such a secretary in my own sitting-room, a chest of drawers surmounted by a cabinet of shelves with glass doors, but I do not use it as a desk. I use the shelves for my old china and porcelains, and the drawers for pamphlets and the thousand and one things that are too flimsily bound for bookshelves. Of course, if one has a large correspondence and uses one's home as an office, it is better to have a large desk with a top which closes. ”

“ HOW TO MAKE YOUR OWN DESK SET A DESK set is a great addition to a boy’s desk. If he has a pen tray he knows where his pencils and pens are to be found without rummaging through a tangled mess of top strings and marble bags and nails. If he puts away on the bill file that I Owe You that Billy Smith gave him for a pair of rabbits, it won’t be all crumpled up and beyond identification when Billy gets his next month’s allowance. When you come to think of it, a desk set has a great many advantages—and then, there’s the fun of making it. ”

“ We put these last two sections of the manuscript into a drawer of the desk, to give them a final reading the next morning.
Late that night there came a damp fog, one of those pearly Long Island fogs. The desk drawer swelled up and retired from active life. Containing its precious freight, it was immovable. We stood the desk upside down, we tugged frantically at it, we hammered and chiseled and strove but in vain. ”

“ Above the inkstand is a pen stuck in a hole, with vacant holes beside it. The page on the desk is kept flat by a weight. Above this desk is a second desk, of nearly equal size, on which lies an open book, kept open by a large weight, extending over two-thirds of the open pages. Behind the writer's chair is his book-chest. The background represents a well-appointed chamber. The floor is paved with encaustic tiles; a bright fire is burning on the hearth; the window, on the same plan as that described in the last picture, is open; a comfortable—not to say luxurious—bed invites repose. ”

“ It is but natural that Inspiration should visit frequently in such an environment; and as a precaution against such an emergency, each contributor's room contains a single operating desk and a large blunt instrument like a typewriter. ”

“ Just about the time when the flat table with its drawers in a single row, or in nests serving as pedestals, was finally assuming its familiar modern shape, an invention was introduced which was destined eventually, so far as numbers and convenience go, to supersede all other forms of desk. ”