not extensively encouraged, although never
entirely laid aside.

The desolation that overran the world was found alike in its greatest
or most insignificant concerns; and the same torrent that swept
monarchs from their thrones and peers from their halls did away with
the necessity for professors of the decorative arts. There needed not
the embroiderer of gold and purple to blazon the triumph of a
conqueror who disdained other habiliment than the skin of some
slaughtered beast.[9]

The matron who yet retained the principle of Roman virtue, or the fair
and refined maiden of the eastern capital, far from seeking personal
adornment, rather shunned any decoration which might attract the eyes
and inflame the passions of untamed and ruthless conquerors. All usual
habits were subverted, and for long years the history of the European
world is but a bloody record of war and tumult, of bloodshed and
strife. Few are the cases of peace and tranquillity in this desert of
tumult and blood-guiltiness; but those few "isles of the blessed" in
this ocean of discord, those few sunny spots in the gloomy landscape,
are intimately connected with our theme. The use of the needle for the
daily necessities of life could never, as we have remarked, be
superseded; but the practice of ornamental needlework, in common with
every ennobling science and improving art, was kept alive during this
period of desolation by the church, and by the individual labours and
collective zeal of the despised and contemned monks.

Sharing that hallowed influence which hovered over and protected the
church at this fearful season--for, from the carelessness or
superstition of the barbarians, the ministers of religion were
spared--nunneries, with some few exceptions, were now like refuges
pointed out by Heaven itself. They were originally founded by the
sister of St. Anthony, the hermit of the Egyptian desert, and in their
primitive institution were meant solely for those who, abjuring the
world for religious motives, were desirous to spend their whole time
in devotional exercises. But their sphere of utility became afterwards
widely extended. They became safe and peaceable asylums for all those
to whom life's pilgrimage had been too thorny. The frail but repentant
maiden was here sheltered from the scorn of an uncharitable world; the
virtuous but suffering female, whose earthly hopes had, from whatever
cause, been crushed, could here weep and pray in peace: while sh