t sleep the
quiet hours, this one remains behind when all the others have flown
bedward, and to him the neighbouring tapestries speak a various
language. From the easy chair he sees the firelight play on the
verdure with the effect of a summer breeze, the gracious foliage all
astir. The figures in this enchanted wood are set in motion and
imagination brings them into the life of the moment, makes of them
sympathetic playmates coaxing one to love, as they do, the land of
romance. Before their imperturbable jocundity what bad humour can
exist? All the old songs of mock pastoral times come singing in the
ears, "It happened on a day, in the merry month of May," "Shepherds
all and maidens fair," "It was a lover and his lass," "Phoebus arise,
and paint the skies," _et cetera_. Animated by the fire, in the
silence of the winter night the loving horde gathers and ministers to
the mind afflicted with much hard practicality and the strain of
keeping up with modern inexorable times. This sweet procession on the
walls, thanks be to lovely art, needs no keeping up with, merely asks
to scatter joy and to soften the asperities of a too arduous day.

All the way up the staircase in the house of tapestries are dainty
bits of _millefleurs_, that Gothic invention for transferring a block
of the spring woods from under the trees into a man-made edifice. It
may have a deep indigo background or a dull red--like the shades of
moss or like last year's fallen leaves--but over it all is abundantly
sprinkled dainty bluebells, anemones, daisies, all the spring beauties
in joyous self-assertion and happy mingling. With such flowery guides
to mark the way the path to slumberland is followed. Once within the
bedroom, the poppies of the hangings spread drowsy influence, and the
happy sleeper passes into unconsciousness, passes through the flowered
border of the ancient square, into the scene beyond, becomes one of
those storied persons in the enchanted land and lives with them in
jousts and tourneys or in _fetes champetres_ at lovely chateaux. The
magic spell of the house of tapestries has fallen like the dew from
heaven to bless the striver in our modern life of exigency and
fatigue.

[Illustration: CHINESE TAPESTRY

Chien Lung Period]

[Illustration: COPTIC TAPESTRY

About 300 A. D.]

CHAPTER II

ANTIQUITY

Egypt and China, India and Persia, seem made to take the conceit from
upstart nations like those of Europe and o