Issued under the seal of the Stereoview Publishing Society of London · Bedford Square · W.C.
The Catalogue Page · A Description
Imagine the page before you: creamy stiff paper, faintly foxed at the corners, with the Society's mark engraved at the head — a small stereoscope between two laurel branches, the words PER VISIONEM, ORBIS set in capitals below. The catalogue lists, in tidy column:
- Society Pattern Mahogany Stereoscope, brass-bound · £1 · 4s · 0d
- Standard Card Series, twelve cards in cream stiffener · 3s · 6d per dozen
- Premium Albumen Series, six cards mounted Bristol board, gilt-edged · 6s the half-dozen
Each card bears, lower-right, the small embossed laurel — the Society impress. Trades between members may be lodged at the Bedford Square chambers, Tuesday evenings after seven.
Bedford Square · 14 March, 1884
To the membership, with great feeling —
You ask after my finest acquisition. I shall tell you. Three Tuesdays ago, the porter handed me a card wrapped in tissue from Cousin Edwin in Calcutta. It bore the title "Steps of the Taj — Hour Before Dawn."
I shall confess — I sat alone in the parlour. I placed it in the holder. I lowered my eyes to the brass. And there, before me, the marble stood. Not flat. Stood. One could walk between the cypress trees. The dew sat real on the lower step. I wept, friends. I am not given to weeping, but I wept, because for one moment I had been carried by lens and silver salt across nine thousand miles, and the world had quietly proved itself larger than this drawing-room.
This is the gift of our Society. We do not collect rectangles of card. We collect moments of being elsewhere. Guard them. Trade them. Press them upon any soul who has not yet had their first true look.
Yours in deepest enthusiasm,
Cyrus L. Pembrooke, F.S.P.S.
Master Collector · 47 Tavistock Place
