"A deification of string"

String is my foible. My pockets get so full of little hanks of it, picked up and twisted together, ready for uses that never come. I am seriously annoyed if anyone cuts the string of a parcel instead of patiently and faithfully undoing it fold by fold. How people can bring themselves to use india-rubber rings, which are a sort of deification of string, as lightly as they do, I cannot imagine. To me an india-rubber ring is a precious treasure. I have one which is not new--one that I picked up off the floor, nearly six years ago. I have really tried to use it, but my heart failed me, and I could not commit the extravagance.

Elizabeth Gaskell, Cranford. quoted in J. Hillis Miller, Ariadne's Thread