e the women of Homer, embroidered history--that of the
ancestors of Siegfried.

But in the Middle Ages the embroiderers were ambitious artists. The
deeds of Roland and the siege of Troy, all romantic and classical
lore, provided subjects for the needle.

Shakespeare gives a pretty picture of the graceful weaver and
embroiderer:--

* * * "Would ever with Marina be:--
Be't when she weaves the sleided silk,
With fingers long, small, white as milk;
Or when she would with sharp neeld wound
The cambric, which she makes more sound
By hurting it....
Deep clerks she dumbs; and with her neeld composes
Nature's own shape, of bud, bird, branch, or berry,
That even her art sisters the natural roses."[13]

Before closing this Introduction, I will take the opportunity to
protest against the abuse of the phrase "High Art." It is generally
appropriated by that which is the lowest and most feeble.

An old design for a chair or table, by no means remarkable originally,
but cheaply copied, and covered with a quaint and dismal cretonne or
poorly worked pattern, of which the design is neither new nor
artistic, is introduced by the upholsterer as belonging to "High Art
furniture." The epithet has succeeded to what was once "fashionable"
and "elegant." To get rid of carpets, and put down rugs, to hang up
rows of plates instead of family portraits--this also is "high art."
Likewise gowns lumped upon the shoulders, with all the folds drawn
across, instead of hanging draperies. The term is never used when we
speak of the great arts--painting, sculpture, and architecture. It is,
in fact, only the slang of the cabinet-maker, the upholsterer, and
milliner.

All true Art is very high indeed and apparent; and needs not to be
introduced with a puff. It sits enthroned between Poetry and History.
Even those who are ignorant of its laws feel its influence, and the
soothing grace which it sheds, falling like the rain, equally upon the
just and the unjust. Man's nature always responds to the truly high
and beautiful; only the most degraded are deprived of this source of
happiness. And there are but few women, till debased by cruelty,
misery, or drink, that do not try in some humble way (but especially
with their needle) to adorn their own persons, their children, and
their homes; and if their art is not high, it yet has the power to
elevate them.[14] While the most ambitious women try a higher flight,
into the