But why, one pauses to ask, try to reproduce a picture “done in oils” by the laborious process of needle-work or weaving? Why by process of mosaic? It is one of the useless fancies of the human race. The old tapestry, done by hand when there were no Gobelins, had a meaning and a use. So has the modern tapestry done by hand. It is cheap, it is individual, it is original; but for the Gobelins, that favorite luxury of kings, we fail to see an excuse. However, it is very beautiful, expensive, and rare.
The process of tapestry weaving is called the “haute lisse,” the warp being placed vertically, in contradistinction to the “basse lisse,” a work with a horizontal warp, as is usual. The weaver stands with the model which he is to copy behind him. As the surface of the tapestry must present a perfectly smooth and even surface, all cuttings must be made on the wrong side, for the workman never sees the beautiful work he is doing. This has been made use of in poetry in the following simile:
“We work but blindly at the loom,
Nor see the pattern, save in parts;
Not ours to mark the gleam or bloom,
But labor on, with patient hearts.
“But when the angels overhead
The soul-wrought tapestry unfurls,
Perhaps the tears we vainly shed
May glow amid the threads—like pearls.