where the whole Garden of Eden with its weighty
tragedy is represented by inch-long figures of Adam and Eve, and a
man-headed snake, discussing amicably the advantages of eating or not
eating the forbidden fruit.

Such elaboration in miniature embroidery made good the claim of English
needlework to its first place in the world, since nothing more wonderful
had or has been produced in the whole long history of needlework art. It
was undoubtedly from this school, filtered through generations of
secular practice, that the Moravian picture embroidery came to be a
general American inheritance.

To adapt this wonderful method to the uses of social life was an
admirable achievement, and whether by the sisters of the Moravian
school, or the growth of pre-American influence and time, we do not
certainly know, the fact remains, however, that it was here so cunningly
adapted to the circumstances and spirit of colonial and early American
days as to seem to belong entirely to them, and it would seem quite
clear that Bethlehem was the source of the most skillful needlework art
in America. It was there that the fine ladies of the late eighteenth and
early nineteenth centuries, who sat at the embroidery frame in the
intervals when they were not "sitting at the harp," acquired their
skill.

It was the romantic period of embroidery that makes a very telling
contrast to the earlier crewel and later muslin embroidery of the New
England states. The pieces were seldom larger than eighteen or twenty
inches square, the size probably governed by the width of the superb
satin which was so often used as a background. Not invariably, however,
for I have seen one or two pieces worked upon gray linen where the
surface was entirely covered by stitchery, landscape, trees, and sky
showing an unbroken surface of satiny texture. Pictures from Bible
subjects are frequent, and these have the air of having been copied from
prints; in fact, I have seen some where the print appears underneath the
stitches, showing that it was used as a design. These Scripture pieces
seem to have employed a lower degree of talent than those having
original design, and were probably the somewhat perfunctory work of
young girls whose interests were elsewhere. One picture which I have
seen was treasured as a record of a very romantic elopement--the lover
in the case, riding gayly away with his beloved sitting on a pillion
behind him, and no witnesses to the deed but a small si