Candle Quotes

Some quotes from Betty Oppenheimer’s The Candlemaker's Companion: A Complete Guide to Rolling, Pouring, Dipping, and Decorating Your Own Candles.  
ISBN:1580173667

Reading the book, it was very clear that the author doesn't just have a hobby, or even a business – she has an obsession.  Ergo, the book is thorough and meticulous.  Since I fall in the category of crafters who don't like to buy things and enjoy the challenge of making do with what we already have on hand, there wasn't much I could use in the book.  But if I ever decid to get into candle hot and heavy, I would head straight for this text.

And now, the quotes:

In the Middle Ages, Church donations could be made in the form of wax, known as wax-shot or wax-scot (p.7)

Formal candle maker guilds were in place by the 13^th century, and the candle makers in them were  separated into tallow chandlers (those who made candles from animal fats) and wax chandlers (those who make candles from beeswax). In fact, the Paris tax rolls in 1292 listed some 71 chandlers (p. 8).

In the days of old, beeswax was mixed with a lead compound and used as a base make-up by wealthy women to enhance their beauty.  The women kept this white paste dry in the summer months by shielding the face from the sun with a fan.  This way, the ladies could “save face.”   Of course, they were careful never to express mirth so they would not “crack a smile.”   And women who poked their noses into other peope’s business were told to “mind their own beeswax” (p 26).

“How far that little candle throws his beams!  So shines a good deed in a naughty world!”

~William Shakespeare, Merchant of Venice.

“There are two ways of spreading light; to be the candle of the mirror that reflects it.”

~ Edith Wharton, Vesalius in Zante

Hope, like the gleaming taper’s light,

Adorns and cheers our way;

And still, as darker grows the night,

Emits a brighter ray.

~Oliver Goldsmith, The Captivity: An Oratorio