had no backbone.
Besides this lack of colour stanchness, it had another fault which
helped to overbalance its many virtues. It was fatally attractive to
fire. Its soft, fluffy surface seemed to reach out toward flame, and the
contact once made, there ensued one flash of instantaneous blaze, and
the whole surface, no matter if it were a table-cover, a hanging, or the
wall covering a room, was totally destroyed. Yet as one must have had or
heard of such a disastrous experience to fear and avoid it, this
proclivity alone would not have ended its popularity. It was probably
the evanescent character of what was called its "art-colour" which ended
the career of an estimable material, and if the manufacturers had known
how to eliminate its faults and adapt its virtues, it might still have
been a flourishing textile.

In truth, we do not often stop to analyse the reasons of prolonged
popular favour; yet nothing is more certain than that there is reason,
and good reason, for fidelity in public taste. Popular liking, if
continued, is always founded upon certain incontrovertible virtues. If a
manufacture cannot hold its own for ever in public favour, it is because
it fails in some important particular to be what it should be. Products
of the loom must have lasting virtues if they would secure lasting
esteem. Blue denim had its hold upon public use principally for the
reason that it possessed a colour superior to all the chances and
accidents of its varied life. It is true it was a colour which commended
itself to general liking, yet if as stanch and steadfast a green or red
could be imparted to an equally cheap and durable fabric, it would find
as lasting a place in public favour.

It is quite possible that in the near future domestic weavings may come
to the aid of the critical house-furnisher, so that the qualities of
strength and pliability may be united with colour which is both
water-fast and sun-fast, and that we shall be able to order not only the
kind of material, but the exact shade of colour necessary to the
perfection of our houses.

To be washable as well as durable is also a great point in favour of
cotton textiles. The English chintzes with which the high post bedsteads
of our foremothers were hung had a yearly baptism of family soap-suds,
and came from it with their designs of gaily-crested, almost life-size
pheasants, sitting upon inadequate branches, very little subdued by the
process. Those were not days of co