Barbara found herself at the entrance of a long gallery in the mine, in the roof of which an aperture had been made up to the outer surface of the mountain, and through which a flood of sunshine was pouring down into what seemed a glittering corridor, hung with festoons of the most exquisitely wrought tapestry. Never had Barbara beheld any thing so fantastically beautiful. The sides of the shaft were covered with a half transparent fabric, enwrought with patterns like rich embroidery, through which the gleam of the metal shone like gold, as the sunbeam danced into the cavern depths.
It was a gallery in the mine, which years before had been closed up and forgotten. The workmen, while digging an air-shaft, had struck into the disused chamber. Cut in the solid ore, the pillars which supported its roof were carved into grotesque shapes, as the whim of the old miners had directed the stroke of their tools. During the years that it had been closed, the spiders had taken possession of its walls, and their webs, spun over and over again, for more than half a century, had produced a tapestry richer in design, and more airy in fabric than ever came from the looms of Ispahan. It needed but little stretch of imagination to behold the vine with its tiny tendrils and drooping fruit, the rose with its buds and leaves, the fantastic arabesque border, and the quaint devices of ancient emblazoning in that many-tissued yet translucent web. No where else could the same humble material have worn the same magical beauty, for the mingled colors of the ore which formed the walls, and the golden sunshine pouring in through the roof, tinted the woven tracery with all the hues of the rainbow.
Barbara stood entranced before this strange spectacle, but while she gazed, dim and vague recollections came thronging upon her mind. At length all was clear to her. In the webs which adorned the walls of the mine, she recognized the beautiful drapery which had veiled the face of her dream-visitant, and had linked together the band of dream-children in former years. A cry of wild surprise broke from her lips, and from that moment she felt that there was a mysterious connection between her fate and this haunted chamber of the mine.
Now when Barbara returned to her home, and sat down amid her workwomen, she told of this wondrous fabric woven by the little fairy spinners in the mine. It happened that among the pensioners of her bounty was numbered a certain woman from Brabrant who had been driven from her home by the cruelties practiced by the Duke of Alva in the Low Countries. In her own country she had learned to weave a coarse kind of lace, and when she heard her lady describe the delicate texture of the spiders’ webs, she drew forth some flaxen threads, and wove them into meshes resembling somewhat the drapery which Barbara had so admired. This was all that was wanting to give purpose and definiteness to Barbara’s vague fancies.
They who look with most pleasure on a finished work, are oft-times most easily wearied with tracing the slow footsteps of the patient laborer. The reader would tire of this faithful chronicle if called to watch the gradual progress of Barbara Uttman’s schemes of wide spread good. By unwearied toil she made herself acquainted with the means of perfecting the new manufacture, which offered to her prophetic spirit a means of livelihood to the feebler portion of the poor. Going on from one improvement to another, she finally invented the cushion, the bobbins, and the pins, by which hand-woven lace is wrought with such perfect symmetry and regularity of fabric and design as make it, even now, the costliest of all the trappings of wealth. Then—when the invention was perfected—by offering premiums to those who would engage in the work, by establishing manufactories in her own domain, by precept and example, and all the varied means of influence which wealth and virtue had placed within her power, she established the weaving of lace as the especial employment of the women of Saxony. Thousands of maidens have found their sole support in this employment, and for nearly three hundred years the name of Barbara Uttman has been revered as the “mother” of many daughters, and the benefactress of the women of more than one nation in Europe.
Gentle reader, I have beguiled you with no fictitious tale. In the church-yard of the little mountain hamlet of Anneberg lie the remains of Barbara Uttman, who was born in 1514, married in 1531 to Christopher Uttman, a rich mine-owner, and died a widow in 1575. A visit to a long-disused shaft in a mine, where the spiders’ had woven their webs for fifty years, gave her the first idea of that beautiful fabric, which, under the various names of Mechlen, Valenciennes, and Brussels lace, makes the choicest of all additions to a lady’s toilet. It is said that since her establishment of its manufacture in 1560, upwards of a million of women are supposed to have obtained a comfortable livelihood by this species of employment. Notwithstanding the general introduction of a much inferior kind of lace, which is woven by machinery, at least twenty thousand women in Europe, annually obtain their support from the manufacture of hand-woven lace. With the far-seeing spirit of true philanthropy a woman thus solved for her country the problem which statesmen yet cavil over, and by affording the poor a means of humble independence, rescued the females of her own land from want and destitution. Yet how few of those who deck themselves with lace, only less costly than diamonds, have ever heard the name of Barbara Uttman!
SUNSET UPON “THE STEINE-KILL.”
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