inner story of the existence
of man which bears the relation to him of sunlight to the plant. We can
deduce from these needle records much of the physical circumstances of
woman's long pilgrimage down the ages, of her mental processes, of her
growth in thought. We can judge from the character of her art whether
she was at peace with herself and the world, and from its status we
become aware of its relative importance to the conditions of her life.

There are few written records of its practice and growth, for an art
which does not affect the commercial gain of a land or country is not
apt to have a written or statistical history, but, fortunately in this
case, the curious and valuable specimens which are left to us tell their
own story. They reveal the cultivation and amelioration of domestic
life. Their contribution to the refinements are their very existence.

A history of any domestic practice which has grown into a habit marks
the degree of general civilization, but the practice of needlework does
more. To a careful student each small difference in the art tells its
own story in its own language. The hammered gold of Eastern embroidery
tells not only of the riches of available material, but of the habit of
personal preparation, instead of the mechanical. The little Bible
description of captured "needlework alike on both sides" speaks
unmistakably of the method of their stitchery, a cross-stitch of colored
threads, which is even now the only method of stitch "alike on both
sides."

It is an endless and fascinating story of the leisure of women in all
ages and circumstances, written in her own handwriting of painstaking
needlework and an estimate of an art to which gold, silver, and precious
stones--the treasures of the world--were devoted. More than this, its
intimate association with the growth and well-being of family life makes
visible the point where savagery is left behind and the decrees of
civilization begin.

I knew a dear Bible-nourished lonely little maid who had constructed for
herself a drama of Eve in Eden, playing it for the solitary audience of
self in a corner of the garden. She had brought all manner of fruits and
had tied them to the fence palings under the apple boughs. This little
Eve gathered grape leaves and sewed them carefully into an apron, the
needle holes pierced with a thorn and held together by fiber stripped
from long-stemmed plantain leaves. Here she and her audience of self hid
un