International studio (18.1902/1903)

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forgotten or are relegated to the shop or to the
machine.
The pride of the bride used to be in her napery.
Her dower chest was gifted her, that she might store
those productions of the loom and needle that
should beautify the bed whereon she was to sieep
and the table at which she was to preside; and
much of genius and a great deal of skiil was
brought to bear upon articles alike of use and for
ornament, so that the everyday handlings of life were
broidered with beauty and enhanced by art, even
as the ftowers of the hedgerow, the traveher's joy,
and the vagrant honeysuckle, the hop, and the
bryony broider the hedges of the English
highroads. And no one questions the joy that
comes from an environment of househoid wares
that, compelled by use, are enhanced by art in
their making. If the magic of beauty, the effect of
temperament, can be added to the things we needs
must have, must needs use, the having and using
give sensations of absolute pieasure. And if this
be possibie, as indeed it is, then the objection that
beauty is rare, and therefore dear, and, as a quality,
must always remain a possession for the few, must
be met and combated. Beauty is not for the few,
but for the many, and that it is costly is no valid
objection. It costs no more to create a beautiful
object than it does to produce an ugly one, and
ugliness incarnate is oftentimes dearer than beauty,
although less may have been paid
for the former. The price of the
material in an ugiy production is
oftentimes more than that con-
tained in a beautiful object. The
purchaser of a picture does not pay
merely for the tubes of colours
used nor for the canvas employed,
nor even for the mere time of
the artist; he pays for that power
that transmutes both pigments and
time into beauty. And nowadays
there is far too much money in-
vested in the painted side of
beauty,and not nearly enough given
for that art that expresses
itseif through the table-cioth that
covers our table or the towel upon
which we dry our hands. Adam
Smith, in his "Wealth of Nations,"
left out of account those priceless
treasures which we possess in our
pictures—wealth that makes poor
nations rich, and without which
wealthy nations are poor. How

much more wealth could he have attributed to
nations had he taken into consideration that inex-
pressible and untold value which the application
of art to common things brings alike to maker
and to user ! And if this honour can be given to
the articles that are thus treated, how much greater
is the credit due to the worker who produces them !
And to Ann Macbeth every commendation can be
paid for the part she is taking in this addition ot
beauty to our daily surroundings. With her, the
art of the needle is at once the object of her life
and a means for the fullest expression of a nature
that teems with artistic sentiments and ideas. And
she has no false pretences as to the value of the
good she may possibly be doing in the world. She
is content simply to be a worker, doing practical
and useful work, and hnding for it a place in the
market and by it a subsistence for herself.
Coming of an artistic stock, and bearing a name
that hgures in more than one list of Royal Acade-
micians, Ann Macbeth began_ life, if heredity
counts for anything, with helpful instincts. But
unlike so many art workers of the present day, who
start designing before they draw, and claim credit
for novelty of idea where workmanship would have
been more desirable, Miss Macbeth kept her
design aspirations in the background until she had
made herself a competent draughtswoman, and had
mastered the art of drawing, without which design


"EMBROtDERED TABLE CLOTH" DESIGNEDBY ANN MACBETH
WORKED BY CLARA BENTLEY

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