urely production; it is that the stimulating
effect is gone, of a craft eagerly pursued in various centres, where
guilds may be formed, where healthy rivalry spurs to excellence, where
the world of the fine arts is also vitally concerned.

The great hangings of the past were the natural expression of
decoration in those days, the natural demand of pomp, of splendour and
of comfort. As in all things great and small, the act is but the
visible expression of an inward impulse, and we of to-day have not the
spirit that expresses itself in the reverent building of cathedrals,
or in the inspired composition of tapestries.

This is to be entirely distinguished from appreciation. That gift we
have, and it is momentarily increasing. To be entirely commercial,
which view is of course not the right one, one need only watch the
reports of sales at home and abroad to see what this latter-day
appreciation means in pelf. In England a tapestry was recently
unearthed and identified as one of the series of seven woven for
Cardinal Woolsey. It is not of extraordinary size, but was woven in
the interesting years hovering above and below the century mark of
1500. The time was when public favour spoke for the upholding of
morality with a conspicuousness which could be called Puritanism, were
the anachronism possible. Pointing a moral was the fundamental excuse
for pictorial art. This tapestry represents one of _The Seven Deadly
Sins_. Hampton Court displays the three other known pieces of the
series, and he who harbours this most recent discovery has paid
$33,000 for the privilege.

But that is a tiny sum compared to the price that rumour accredits Mr.
Morgan with paying for _The Adoration of the Eternal Father_ (called
also _The Kingdom of Heaven_). And this is topped by $750,000 paid for
a Boucher set of five pieces. One might continue to enumerate the
sales where enormous sums are laid down in appreciation of the men
whose excellence of work we cannot achieve, but these sums paid only
show with pathetic discouragement the completeness with which the
spirit of commercialism has replaced the spirit of art, at least in
the expression of art that occupies our attention.

[Illustration: MODERN AMERICAN TAPESTRY, LOUIS XV INSPIRATION]

[Illustration: MODERN AMERICAN TAPESTRY FROM FRENCH INSPIRATION]

If, then, this is not an age of production, but of appreciation,
it, too, has its natural expression. First it is the acquiring at any