regions of poetry, literature, painting, and even sculpture
(why has no woman ever been an architect?), millions have enjoyed the
art of the needle for thousands of years, and it will continue to be a
solace and a delight as long as the world lasts, for, like all art, it
gives the ever new joy of creation.

FOOTNOTES:

[3] See Duke of Argyll's "Unity of Nature."

[4] Walls, pillars, and roofs were certainly hung with
textile ornament before they were carved or painted.
This is Semper's theory, and though Woltmann and
Woermann ("History of Painting," Eng. Trans., Sidney
Colvin, p. 38) hardly accept this view, they do not
gainsay it. The women who wove hangings for the grove,
or more literally, "coverings for the houses" of the
grove, were probably the priestesses of Astarte, and
wove and worked the hangings of various colours. 2 Kings
xxii.; Ezek. xvi. 16-18.

"It is probable that the earliest kind of pictures were
either woven or embroidered upon figured stuffs of
various colours; and that in these decorations the
Greeks in the first instance imitated the Semitic races,
who had practised them from time immemorial." See
Woltmann and Woermann's "History of Painting" (Eng.
Trans.), p. 38.

[5] Joshua vii.

[6] Ezek. xxvii. 23.

[7] The wall of China, which, both figuratively and
literally, enclosed its civilization, and fenced off
that of the outer world, for thousands of years.

[8] When the tomb of King John was opened, the body was
found wrapped in the same dress as that sculptured on
his effigy. The surcoat of the Black Prince, of
embroidered velvet, still hangs above his monument, on
which it is exactly reproduced.

[9] Yet men, too, have wielded the embroidering needle.

[10] These remnants are not, like the straws in amber,
only precious because they are curious; they are most
suggestive as works of art.

[11] Pope's Homer, Iliad, book iii.

[12] Ibid. book vi.

[13] Shakespeare, "Pericles, Prince of Tyre," act iv.
20; v. 5.

[14] Surely it is a humanizing and Christian principle
which in Italy permits artistic work to be done in the
prisons where criminals are confined for life. Sisters
of Mercy teach lace-making to the wretched women who,
having committed great crimes, may never be seen again.
The produce of the work helps