active 1840-1883 Sutherland Menzies

“ John Taylor.
Needlework is an art so attractive in itself; it is capable of such infinite variety, and is such a beguiler of lonely, as of social hours, and offers such scope to the indulgence of fancy, and the display of taste; it is withal—in its lighter branches—accompanied with so little bodily exertion, not deranging the most recherché dress, nor incommoding the most elaborate and exquisite costume, that we cannot wonder that it has been practised with ardour even by those the farthest removed from any necessity for its exercise. ”

“ NEEDLEWORK ON BOOKS.
“And often did she look
On that which in her hand she bore,
In velvet bound and broider’d o’er—
Her breviary book.”
Marmion.
“Books are ours,
Within whose silent chambers treasure lies
Preserved from age to age—
These hoards of truth we can unlock at will.”
Wordsworth.
Deep indeed are our obligations for those treasures which “we can unlock at will:” treasures of far more value than gold or gems, for they oftentimes bestow that which gold cannot purchase—even forgetfulness of sorrow and pain. Happy are those who have a taste for reading and leisure to indulge it. ”

“ Who can see with patience the monstrous, fantastical inventions which the people of our times [Pg 196] have invented to deform, rather than adorn, their persons? Who can behold without indignation their long pointed shoes; their caps with feathers; their hair twisted and hanging down like tails; the foreheads of young men, as well as women, formed into a kind of furrows with ivory-headed pins; their bellies so cruelly squeezed with cords, that they suffer as much pain from vanity as the martyrs suffered for religion? ”

“ Woe to that nation whose women, as a habit, as a custom, as a matter of course, seek to intrude on the attributes of the other sex, and in a vain, a foolish, and surely a most unsuccessful pursuit of publicity, or power, or fame, forget the distinguishing, the high, the noble, the lofty, the pure and unearthly vocation of their sex. Every earthly charity, every unearthly virtue, are the legitimate object of woman’s pursuit. ”

“ Fashion in those days was not quite the chameleon-hued creature that she is at present; nor were the fabrics on which her fancy was displayed quite so light and airy: their gold was gold—not silk covered with gilded silver; and consequently the raiment of those days, inwrought with slips of gold beaten thin and cut into spangles or strips, and sewed on in various patterns, sometimes intermingled with precious stones, would carry its own intrinsic value with it. ”

“ It seems almost impossible to have lived amidst the stupendous magnificence of Egypt in days of yore, without the mind assimilating itself in some degree to the greatness with which it was surrounded. The vast deserts, the stupendous mountains, the river Nile—the single and solitary river which in itself sufficed the needs of a mighty empire—these majestic monuments of nature seemed as emblems to which the people should fashion, as they did fashion, their pyramids, their tombs, their sphynxes, their mighty reservoirs, and their colossal statues. ”

“ At her shrine worship all the nations of the earth. The savage who bores his nose or tattooes his tawny skin is impelled by the same power which robes the courtly Eastern in flowing garments; and the dark-hued beauty who smears herself with blubber is influenced by the selfsame motive which causes the fair-haired daughter of England to tint her delicate cheek with the mimic rose.
And it is not merely in the shape and form of garments that this deity exercises her tyrannic sway, transforming “men into monsters,” and women likewise—if it were possible: her vagaries are infinite and unaccountable ”

“ Furs of all sorts were in great request, and a mantle of regal hue, lined throughout with vair or sable, and decorated with bands of gold lace and flowers of the richest embroidery, interspersed with pearls, clasped on the shoulder with the most precious gems, and looped, if requisite, with golden tassels, was a garment at which a nobleman, even of these days, need not look askance. ”

“ Beautiful and good, the blessing of Heaven attending him, and throwing a beam of light on his fair brow, the pure and holy child appears like a seraph administering at that altar to which he had been consecrated a babe, and at which his ministry was sanctioned even by the voice of the Most High himself, when in the solemn stillness of midnight he breathed his wishes into the heart of the child, and made him, infant as he was, the medium of his communications to one grown hoary in the service of the altar. ”

“ First came about five hundred of the gayest and wealthiest gentlemen of England, below the rank of baron; squires, knights, and bannerets, rivalling each other in the richness of their apparel and the beauty of their horses; while the pennons of the knights fluttered above their heads, marking the place of the English chivalry. Next appeared the proud barons of the realm, each with his banner borne before him, and followed by a custrel with the shield of his arms. ”

“ But there is another handmaiden created for the delight and solace of mankind in general, and who from the earliest days, even until now, has been the loving friend of the needlewoman; ever whispering suggestions in her ear, or tracing patterns on her work, or gently guiding her finger through the fantastic maze. She is of the most exquisite beauty: fragile in form as the gossamer that floats on a summer’s breath—brilliant in appearance as the colours that illumine the rainbow. So light, that she floats on an atom; so powerful that she raises empires, nay, the whole earth by her might. ”

“ The palace (of Westminster) and all its precincts became the elysium of tailors, embroiderers, and sempstresses. There might you see many a shady form gliding about from apartment to apartment, with smiling looks and extended shears, or armed with ell-wands more potent than Mercury’s rod, driving many a poor soul to perdition, and transforming his goodly acres into velvet suits, with tags of cloth of gold. So continual were the demands upon every kind of artisan, that the impossibility of executing them threw several into despair. ”

“ These magnificent hangings are woven of wool and silk, and one yet perceives almost throughout, golden and silver threads which time has spared. When the artist prepared to copy them for the work we are quoting, no one dreamt of the richness buried beneath the accumulated dust and dirt of centuries. ”

“ First and foremost, as the guiding spirit of the whole, as the mighty artificer of that pageant on which, however gaudy in its particulars the fates of Europe were supposed to depend, and the earnest eyes of Europe were certainly fixed—comes Wolsey.—Gorgeously habited himself, and the burnished gold of his saddle cloth only partially relieved by the more sombre crimson velvet; nay, his very shoes gleaming with brilliants, and himself withal so lofty in bearing, of so noble a presence, that this very magnificence seemed but a natural appendage, Wolsey took his lofty way from monarch to monarch ”

“ With grave and sedate aspect she would shape and sew the uncomely raiment of a Genevan divine; with neat-handed alacrity she would prepare the grave and becoming garments of the Anglican Church, though perhaps a gentle sigh would escape, a sigh of regret for the stately and glowing vestments of old: for they did honour to the house of God, not because they were stately and glowing, but because they were offerings of our best.
In all the sweet charities of domestic life she has ever been a participant. ”

“ For the love of becoming ornament—we quote no less an authority than the historian of the ‘State of Europe in the Middle Ages,’—“is not, perhaps, to be regarded in the light of vanity; it is rather an instinct which woman has received from Nature to give effect to those charms which are her defence.” And if it be necessary to woman with her charms, is it not tenfold necessary to those who—Heaven help them!—have few charms whereof to boast? For, as Harrison says, “it is now come to passe that men are transformed into monsters.” ”

“ With proud and pleased humility did the fair inmates of those tents, the most accomplished of Israel’s daughters, display to their illustrious visitors the “fine needlework” to which their time and talents had been for a long season devoted, and which was now on the eve of completion. The “holy garments” which God had commanded to be made “for glory and for beauty;” the pomegranates on the hem of the high priest’s robe, wrought in blue and purple and scarlet; the flowers on his “girdle of needlework,” glowing as in life ”

“ If there be one mechanical art of more universal application than all others, and therefore of more universal interest, it is that which is practised with the Needle. From the stateliest denizen of the proudest palace, to the humblest dweller in the poorest cottage, all more or less ply the busy needle ”

“ In the eastern sky the stars gleam brightly in the pure transparent atmosphere; and ere long the moon casts pale radiant beams adown the dark ravines, and utters her wondrous lore to the silent hills and the gloomy waste. The sounds of toil are hushed; the weary labourer seeks repose; the toil-worn wanderer is at rest: the murmuring sounds of domestic life sink lower and lower; the breath of prayer becomes fainter and fainter; the voice of praise, the evensong of Israel, comes stealing through the calm of evening, and now dies softly away. ”

“ 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. ”

“ To whom, then, are the fullers, the dyers, the cleaners—to whom are the spinners and weavers, and printers and mercers, and milliners and haberdashers, and modistes, and silk-men and manufacturers, cotton lords and fustian men, mantuamakers and corset professors, indebted for that nameless grace, that exquisite finish and appropriateness, which gives to all their productions their charm and their utility?—To the Needlewoman, assuredly. ”

“ Consequently those domestic virtues which are woman’s greatest pride, those retiring characteristics which are her most becoming ornament, those gentle occupations which are her best employment, find no record on pages whose chief aim and end is the blazoning of manly heroism, of royal disputations, or of trumpet-stirring records. And if this is the case even with historians of enlightened times, who have the gallantry to allow woman to be a component part of creation, we can hardly wonder that in darker days she should be utterly and entirely overlooked. ”

“ And in tournaments the lists were always decorated “with the splendid richness of feudal power. Besides the gorgeous array of heraldic insignia near the Champions’ tents, the galleries, which were made to contain the proud and joyous spectators, were covered with tapestry, representing chivalry both in its warlike and its amorous guise: on one side the knight with his bright faulchion smiting away hosts of foes, and on the other side kneeling at the feet of beauty.” ”

“ Fashion is fickle, varying, inconstant; given to sudden partialities and to disruptions unlooked for, and as sudden. She laughs to scorn Utility’s grave maxims, and exaggerates the graceful suggestions of Taste until they appear complete caricatures. Consequently they, offended, retire; and Fashion, heedless, holds on her own course, keeping the needlewoman in complete subjection to her arbitrary rule, which is often enforced in her transient absence by her own peculiar friend and intimate—Caprice. ”

“ Could any thing afford a stronger contrast to the grave and certainly severe study to which Elizabeth had habituated herself, than the vain and fantastic puerility of many of her recreations and habits,—the unintellectual brutality of the bearbaits which she admired, or the gaudy and glittering pageants in which she delighted? She built a gallery at Whitehall at immense expense, and so superficially, that it was in ruins in her successor’s time ”

“ The royal palace of Jeddo has profusion of the finest Tapestry; this indeed is gorgeous, being wrought with silk, and adorned with pearls, gold, and silver.
It was considered a right regal offering from one prince to another. ”

“ The unassuming and unattractively placed edifice has outlived its more aspiring neighbours; and while the stately palace of the Savoy is extinct, and the slight remains of Westminster are desecrated, the time-honoured walls of Lambeth yet shelter the head of learning and dignify the location in which they were reared.
Eastward of our position the city looks dim and crowded; but, with the exception of the sprinkled mansions to which we have alluded, there is little to break the natural characteristics of the scene between Temple-bar and the West Minster. ”

“ The ancient Greeks were very magnificent—very: magnificent senators, magnificent warriors, magnificent men; but they were a people trained from the cradle for exhibition and publicity; domestic life was quite cast into the shade. Consequently and necessarily their women were thrown to greater distance, till it happened, naturally enough, that they seemed to form a distinct community; and apartments the most distant and secluded that the mansion afforded were usually assigned to them. Of these, in large establishments, certain ones were always appropriated to the labours of the needle. ”

“ This is, methinks, the most proper way wherein a lady can show a fine genius; and I cannot forbear wishing that several writers of that sex had chosen to apply themselves rather to tapestry than rhyme. Your pastoral poetesses may vent their fancy in great landscapes, and place despairing shepherds under silken willows, or drown them in a stream of mohair. The heroic writers may work of battles as successfully, and inflame them with gold, or stain them with crimson. ”