follow a series of historical galleries,
showing the rise and fall (if fallen) of the arts in their beautiful
associations, as practiced in the great cities and by the great nations
of the world. The history of Egypt, of Persia, of Greece, of Italy, of
France, and of England, should be given in their arts,--dynasty by
dynasty and age by age; and for a seventh, a Sunday Room, for the
history of Christianity in its art, including the farthest range and
feeblest efforts of it; reserving for this room, also, what power could
be reached in delineation of the great monasteries and cathedrals which
were once the glory of all Christian lands.

208. In such a scheme, every form of noble art would take harmonious
and instructive place, and often very little and disregarded things be
found to possess unthought-of interest and hidden relative beauty; but
its efficiency--and in this chiefly let it be commended to the patience
of your practical readers--would depend, not on its extent, but on its
strict and precise limitation. The methods of which, if you care to have
my notions of them, I might perhaps enter into, next month, with some
illustrative detail.--Ever most truly yours,

J. R.

_10th June, 1880._[7]

MY DEAR ----,

209. I can't give you any talk on detail, yet; but, not to drop a stitch
in my story, I want to say why I've attached so much importance to
needlework, and put it in the opening court of the six. You see they are
progressive, so that I don't quite put needlework on a _level_ with
painting. But a nation that would learn to "touch" _must_ primarily know
how to "stitch." I am always busy, for a good part of the day, in my
wood, and wear out my leathern gloves fast, after once I can wear them
at all: but that's the precise difficulty of the matter. I get them from
the shop looking as stout and trim as you please, and half an hour after
I've got to work they split up the fingers and thumbs like ripe
horse-chestnut shells, and I find myself with five dangling rags round
my wrist, and a rotten white thread draggling after me through the wood,
or tickling my nose, as if Ariadne and Arachne had lost their wits
together. I go home, invoking the universe against sewing-machines; and
beg the charity of a sound stitch or two from any of the maids who know
their woman's art; and thenceforward the life of the glove proper
begins. Wow, it is not possible for any people that put up with this
sort of thing, to learn