e
bitter gibes of mummer and buffoon. We can hear its echoes in the
invectives of the reformer,--"I doubt," said a good
fifteenth-century bishop to the ladies of England in their horned
caps,--"I doubt the Devil sit not between those horns." We find it
illustrated with admirable naivete in the tapestries which hang in
the entrance corridor of the Belle Arti in Florence.

These tapestries tell the downfall of our first parents. In one we
see the newly created and lovely Eve standing by the side of the
sleeping Adam, and regarding him with pleasurable anticipation.
Another shows us the animals marching in line to be inspected and
named. The snail heads the procession and sets the pace. The lion
and the tiger stroll gossiping together. The unicorn walks alone,
very stiff and proud. Two rats and two mice are closely followed by
two sleek cats, who keep them well covered, and plainly await the
time when Eve's amiable indiscretion shall assign them their natural
prey. In the third tapestry the deed has been done, the apple had
been eaten. The beasts are ravening in the background. Adam, already
clad, is engaged in fastening a picturesque girdle of leaves around
the unrepentant Eve,--for all the world like a modern husband
fastening his wife's gown,--while she for the first time gathers up
her long fair hair. Her attitude is full of innocent yet
indescribable coquetry. The passion for self-adornment had already
taken possession of her soul. Before her lies a future of many cares
and some compensations. She is going to work and she is going to weep,
but she is also going to dress. The price was hers to pay.

In the hearts of Eve's daughters lies an unspoken convincement that
the price was not too dear. As far as feminity is known, or can ever
be known, one dominant impulse has never wavered or weakened. In
every period of the world's history, in every quarter of the globe,
in every stage of savagery or civilization, this elementary instinct
has held, and still holds good. The history of the world is largely
the history of dress. It is the most illuminating of records, and
tells its tale with a candour and completeness which no chronicle
can surpass. We all agree in saying that people who reached a high
stage of artistic development, like the Greeks and the Italians of
the Renaissance, expressed this sense of perfection in their attire;
but what we do not acknowledge so frankly is that these same nations
encouraged the beauty