ost intricate and aerial patterns, that had the
advantage of never soiling, never tearing, and never wearing out.
Curtains for drawing-room arches were frequently made of it. Some of
them looked like woven dew drops.

One set of curtains that I greatly admired, and was a long time ignorant
of what they were made of, were so unique, I must do myself the pleasure
to describe them. They hung across the arch that led to the glass
conservatory attached to my friend's handsome dwelling. Three very thin
sheets of glass were woven separately and then joined at the edges so
ingeniously as to defy detection. The inside curtain was one solid
color: crimson. Over this was a curtain of snow flakes, delicate as
those aerial nothings of the sky, and more durable than any fabric
known. Hung across the arched entrance to a conservatory, with a great
globe of white fire shining through it, it was lovely as the blush of
Aphrodite when she rose from the sea, veiled in its fleecy foam.

They also possessed the art of making glass highly refractive. Their
table-ware surpassed in beauty all that I had ever previously seen. I
saw tea cups as frail looking as soap bubbles, possessing the delicate
iridescence of opals. Many other exquisite designs were the product of
its flexibility and transparency. The first article that attracted my
attention was the dress of an actress on the stage. It was lace, made of
gossamer threads of amber in the design of lilies and leaves, and was
worn over black velvet.

The wonderful water scene that I beheld at the theatre was produced by
waves made of glass and edged with foam, a milky glass spun into tiny
bubbles. They were agitated by machinery that caused them to roll with a
terribly natural look. The blinding flashes of lightning had been the
display of genuine electricity.

Nothing in the way of artistic effect could call forth admiration or
favorable comment unless it was so exact an imitation of nature as to
not be distinguished from the real without the closest scrutiny. In
private life no one assumed a part. All the acting I ever saw in Mizora
was done upon the stage.

I could not appreciate their mental pleasures, any more than a savage
could delight in a nocturne of Chopin. Yet one was the intellectual
ecstasy of a sublime intelligence, and the other the harmonious rapture
of a divinely melodious soul. I must here mention that the processes of
chemical experiment in Mizora differed materially from