ns of this the
worker is able to advance or withdraw the alternate threads for the
casting of the _broche_ or _flute_, which is the shuttle. Behind the
veil of the warp sits the weaver--_tissier_ or _tapissier_--with his
supply of coloured thread; back of him is the cartoon he is copying.
He can only see his work by means of a little mirror the other side of
his warp, which reflects it. The only indulgence that convenience
accords him is a tracing on the white threads of the warp, a copy of
the picture he is weaving. Thus stands the prisoner of art, sentenced
to hard labour, but with the heart-swelling joy of creating, to
lighten his task.

[Illustration: WEAVER AT WORK ON LOW LOOM. HERTER STUDIO]

[Illustration: SEWING AND REPAIR DEPARTMENT. BAUMGARTEN ATELIERS]

High-warp looms were those that made famous the tapestries of Arras in
the Fifteenth Century, of Brussels in the Sixteenth, and of Paris in
the Seventeenth, therefore it is not strange that they are worshipped
as having a resident, mysterious power.

To-day, the age of practicality, they scarcely exist outside the old
Gobelins in Paris. But this is not the day of tapestry weaving.

A shuttle, thrown by machine, goes all the width of the fabric, back
and forth. The _flute_ or _broche_, which is the shuttle of the
tapestry weaver, flies only as far as it is desired to thrust it, to
finish the figure on which its especial colour is required. Thus, a
leaf, a detail of any small sort, may mount higher and higher on the
warp, to its completion, before other adjacent parts are attempted.

The effect of this is to leave open slits, petty gashes in the fabric,
running lengthwise of the warp, and these are all united later with
the needle, in the hands of the women who thus finish the pieces.

Unused colours wound on the hundreds of flutes are dropped at the
demand of the pattern, left in a rich confusion of shades to be
resumed by the workmen at will; but the threads are not severed, if
the colour is to be used again soon.

Low-warp work is the same except for the weaver's position in relation
to his work. Instead of the warp like a thin wall before his face, on
which he seems to play as on one side of a harp, the warp is extended
before him as a table. It is easy to see how much more convenient is
this method.

The wooden rollers are the same, one for the yet unused length of
warp, the other for the finished fabric, and over one of these rollers
the wor