"Clara and Mr. Tiffany"

[fiefoe]

The novel is certainly informative but Susan Vreeland made the heroine rather off-putting in a Mary Sue-ish way. The way she started the story right in the middle and presenting her back story in telegraph language ("Complication: Proper mother thinks it unseemly to accept money unless he’s part of the family. Gentleman proposes marriage to elder daughter. Out of guilt for loss of father’s income, elder daughter gives up job in the arts to marry him. Younger sister goes to art school. Climax: Younger sister quits art school. Dénouement: Older sister becomes disenfranchised widow.") didn't help.

• A new one depicted a lily on a tall stalk lording over a much shorter one. Amusing. Little Napoléon’s self-conscious preoccupation with height was alive and well.
• He jerked his head up with a startled expression, the idea dawning on him as if it were his own. “Lampshades in leaded glass,” he said in wonder.
• I showed the girls how the lower blade fit between the two upper parallel blades to remove a one-sixteenth-inch strip, which would create space for the lead strips that hold the pieces of glass together.
• It’s his only concession to medieval stained-glass craftsmanship of painting on glass with powdered enamels and then firing the pieces.” I explained that we avoid enameling whenever possible because it cuts out some of the light.
• “Hire from Art Students League and the Metropolitan.” “The tuition there is costly. The Cooper Union art program is free. I’m likely to find girls who really need the money there. They might be more committed.
• and she is teaching the zither to Dudley, so it all comes ’round, ye see, in a happy circle.” She made a circle with fingers plump as sausages and laughed her big bosoms into action.
• horn-rimmed spectacles with expensive gold hinges / weightless gladness of being in love
• “I have never been able to understand how a true lady could accept money from anyone but a father, a husband, an uncle, or a brother.”
• “I believe a leaf of grass is no less than the journey-work of the stars”
• “Everything had a price tag, an innovation that put a stop to undignified haggling over every sale,” Hank said. “I believe his company was one of the first to send out mail-order catalogs,”
• Wags call the women ‘the bachelors,’ but what do they care? Elsie’s silk parlor cushions are embroidered with her motto, ‘Never complain. Never explain.’ Macy’s sells copies. I call that high bohemia.
• “A little bit of pain always rides in the pocket of pleasure,” George said.
• “And a magnificent silver ice bowl decorated with enameled holly leaves and mother-of-pearl berries. Two silver polar bears supported it, surrounded by large rock-crystal chunks that represented icebergs protruding from pine needles and pinecones worked in silver.
• How curious work is. We say that we work on something, but the work is working on us too.
• “Don’t worry. It isn’t serious,” George said. “It’s just … style. Someday, there will be a name for things like this.”
• Looking at the sea horses, I murmured, “What a God, to have conceived of so delicate and calm a creature. Nothing perturbs them. They’re at peace no matter what floats by. If only one could live that way.” “They look ancient,” Alice said.
• “... lift my lamp beside the golden door!” With only the elevator boy to hear, I said, “I am an influence. I am an influence.
• Using my most urgent persuasion, I would have to build a fire under the men who had a part in it—the solderer, the metalworker who would make the burner base, and the bronze caster who would make the filigree on the wings according to my drawings and the socle of lily pads according to my wax model.
• “We found that the drip of melting snow on the upper pine bough catches the light better in clear rather than white glass.