In all times and in all places--in Constantinople, northwestern Zambia, Victorian England, Sparta, Arabia, . . . medieval France, ...Babylonia, . . . Carthage, Mahenjo-Daro, Patagonia, Kyushu, . . . Dresden--the time span between childhood and adulthood, however fleeting or prolonged, has been associated with the acquisition of virtue as it is differently defined in each society. A child may be good and morally obedient, but only in the process of arriving at womanhood or manhood does a human being become capable of virtue--that is, the qualities of mind and body that realize society's ideals.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
It is only following out nature. As a child, I never cared for things that girls usually do; dolls never possessed any charms for ...me. I couldn't see the sense of cuddling bits of porcelain with senseless faces; the only things I wanted were a jack-knife, a gimlet, and pieces of wood. My friends were horrified.... I sighed sometimes, because I was not like other girls, but wisely concluded that I couldn't help it, and sought further consolation from my tools.... I was famous for my kites; and my sleds were the envy and admiration of all the boys in town. I'm not surprised at what I've done. I'm only sorry I couldn't have had as good a chance as a boy, and have been put to my trade regularly.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
As a bathtub lined with white porcelain, When the hot water gives out or goes tepid,... So is the slow cooling of our chivalrous passion, O my much praised but-not-altogether-satisfactory lady.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
And like that game with which the Japanese amuse themselves by dipping in a porcelain bowl of water, small bits of paper which, un...til then were indistinct, but, scarcely plunged in the water, stretch, distort, become colored, differentiated, turn into flowers, houses, substantial and recognizable personages,in the same manner all the flowers in our garden and those of Mr. Swann's park, and the water-lilies of the Vivonne, and the good people of the village and their little homes and the church and all of Combray and its environs, all this which takes shape and solidifies, has come, town and gardens, from my cup of tea.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Architecture is a chained and fettered art. Far from being "frozen music," it is an art constantly attempting to realize in solid,... stable form those effects which music is able to conjure up in an instant--effects which succeed each other rapidly during the progress of a musical work. Music can attain the colossal in a way which, in architecture, only the rarest opportunities render even remotely possible. Music can, in a few moments, admit us through vast portals into avenues, courts and halls of infinite extent and variety. Music can suddenly raise up an entire structure and, by the device of modulation, lift it on to a podium, abruptly recess its facades and turn them bodily into the sunshine. Music can etch silhouettes ten times more intricate than those of Dresden or London City, repeat them, increase or reduce them, hurl them into the distance or bring them before us in precise detail. Most of the essentials of architecture--mass, rhythm, texture, outline--are within music's power. Almost, the two arts are the same art, the one able to express nearly everything which the imagination is capable of conceiving, the other bound by the rigours of economy and use.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Daughters are the seed of occupations, Of asperities, such as wills, deeds, mortgages,... Duels, estates, statesmen, pioneers, embezzlers, 'Eminent Virginians,' reminiscences, bastards, The bar-sinister hushed, effaced by the porcelain tub.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »