with a firmer and steadier purpose in view.

During the first ten years of his residence at Weimar his life was probably influenced by Frau Von Stein more than by any other one person. His letters to her, which have been published, reveal some thing of her influence upon him. Perhaps no other woman had such a profound influence over his life. During this period his work as a statesman and scientist are deserving of notice. His labors in the court at Weimar were invaluable. His journey to the Hartz Mountains, his treatise on Botany, the promulgation of a theory of the phenomena of color, and the discovery of the intermaxillary bone were among his scientific achievements.

Being worn out by the toils of public service, Goethe took a journey into Italy in 1786 for rest. His study of classic art profoundly affected him. The harmonious culture and artistic grace of the Grecians won his heart. He seemed thereafter to have but little patience with the Christian idea of self abnegation and henceforth became a disciple of the Hellenic Muses. Iphigenia, first written in prose, was re-written in classic pentameter, and embodied a blending of the German and Grecian ideals.

He returned from Italy in June, 1788. Soon after his arrival home he took Miss Christine Vulpius into his house, and although no marriage ceremony was performed, he regarded her as a wife. This union was an unfortunate one. Christine, although a good common-sense girl, could not be a true wife to Goethe; and in later life she manifested certain tendencies which gave him much concern and sorrow.

In 1786, he completed the drama "Tasso," which dealt with the history of the Italian poet of that name. In its deeper strains it is poetic rather than dramatic. Soon after, "Egmont" appeared. In it are

to be found unmistakable evidences of a great poet. Goethe first met Schiller in 1788, but it was not until six years later that they became fast friends. From 1794 until Schiller's death they were bosom friends, each helping and stimulating the other to do his best. It was through Schiller's influence that Goethe resumed the fragment of "Faust" in 1790; and in 1808 the first part appeared as it now is. The first two volumes of "Wilhelm Meister" were published in 1795. Although at first not understood, they were received well. It deals with many of the deep and intricate problems of human life. Prof. Boyeson says it "portrays a transition from the feudal to the industrial stage of civilization." Wilhelm's ideal undergoes two or three radical changes. First he seeks pleasure, or rather happiness, in the gay life of an actor. This fails. He next seeks happiness in culture and although broader than the first ideal, it is but little more successful as a means of happiness. Finally he solves his problem in selfsacrifice and devotion to others.

In 1797, "Herman and Dorothea," a rural idyl, was published. It was a popular novel, and revived Goethe's popularity with the common people.

The "Italienesche Reis," (a part of Aus Mein Lehen) appeared in 1816. The second part of "Faust" was completed only a few months before his death and was not published until 1833. Goethe died in March, 1832.

His published works are numerous, including many letters. "Faust" is, of course, his greatest work, and the one which is destined to perpetuate his genius. Goethe is to our nineteenth century thought what Shakespeare was to the Reformation, what Dante was to the Renaissance, and what Homer was to early Greece. All of us cannot see a tithe of the significance of his life and works, but we may at least catch some little portion of the inspiration which he gave to mortals.

forms of your M. I. A. essays; and, instead of writing labored theses on Gratitude, Revenge, Love, Hope, Faith and Gossip, choose such topics as "Pictures in the Home," "How to Arrange a Parlor," "Good Bread," "A Cheap Christmas Dinner," "The Best Way to Cook Beans," "Serubbing as a Fine Art," and "Clothing for the Family?"

If you develop any essays from these or kindred titles, send them in to the Journal, and we will present them before the Literary Committee, with much more hope of their being accepted than the threadbare essays we receive from time to time, on the threadbare and worn-out themes which have sufficed us for a genera

tion.

With this preliminary talk, we will agree to present to the readers of our Journal, the best thoughts on these best of all subjects that we can obtain from our best-prepared writers. Till then a hearty New Year's Greeting for every member of the dear Utah Home!

A BRIEF GLANCE BACKWARD.

Christine D. Young.

So in this particular corner of the Journal we are to meet and discuss an art that most young women delight in; the so-called "art of fancy work."

May it be a refuge where both profit and pleasure shall meet!

One characteristic we are assured of, that is, privacy; for should a masculine caller stumble inadvertently into this our corner, just watch his expression as he discovers his whereabouts, and see him fly back to the broad fields of the Journal's front pages.

We may laugh at him from our retreat; men aren't wanted everywhere, anyhow, and it is good to be alone in a sisterly circle sometimes, where one can feel free to air one's

foibles and feminine limitations, without an august presence looking pitying toleration at us.

Shall we then call this the Journal's cosy corner? Where you may spend a quiet hour and gather new inspiration for your beauty-loving soul and facile needle?

But listen! "Fancy work," my dear, is an obsolete term. Let us do away with it by all means.

Rather call it "art needlework;" that is a name both correct and dignified, and no masculine slur clings to it to make it odious.

Decorative needlework is truly an art, and true art is alwavs dignified, whether expressed by brush, chisel or needle. But when it is not artistic? Well, hide it away, girls, bury it deep where it will never see the light of dav; for it is an eyesore and an offense, utterly useless, and it has no claims whatever for existing.

But, to begin! let us begin at the beginning. Let us be intelligent about it, whatever we do, even if we are women addicted to "fancy work."

You

Yes, those embroidered linens of yours are very pretty, very creditably worked indeed, and you talk very knowingly of "point," and "Kensington stitch;" indeed, your flowers almost rival nature. pride yourself on your "Mexican drawn work" and "Battenburg" lace; but, have you ever thought, as you send your needle flying in and out and up and down, how many, many busy fingers have done so since the world's history began? Or how long, long a time ago it is since maidens just as fresh and enthusiastic as you, first found pleasure, and appreciation, too, in this same work?

Did you ever think that nations' histories have been written in lace or embroidery?

Ah! that is a phase of the common subject, "fancy work," of which you have never thought. This is now

common, and yet so vastly interesting and educational, too, that you ought to know about it.

Let us do our embroidery, our lace making intelligently, and understand how they grew and developed into the things of beauty we know today.

You think you are discovering something entirely new when some style of work comes to town that promises soon to become the rage, because it is "new" and effective. Never a bit, my dear! Put away the deception! It is only the revival of something very old; work, that your great-grandmother, with the "great" multiplied many times, perhaps away at the vanishing point of the lineage, has done, with most exquisite results, too.

Back in the gray dawn of history, Egypt understood and fostered the art of embroidery. In the Department of Pre-historic Anthropology of the United States National Museum, are bits of flax cloth embroidered nearly four thousand years ago. It is to the religious belief of the Egyptians that we owe our knowledge of their arts and industries, and through that a record of these is preserved to the world. The Egytians, you see, believed in the resurrection of the body, and prepared it with greatest care, in a way unknown today, for the tomb. Fragments of the exquisite texture in which they were swathed have survived to this day; and the hieroglyphics that cover the walls of the tombs tell us of the beginning of industries that we have with us today, embroidery among them, and of much that is lost to us. The art of embroidery is among these. "Amasis, king of Egypt, sent to the Minerva of Lindus a linen corselet with figures interwoven and embroidered with gold and wool." You nerceive that they appreciated the beauty of gold threads so very long ago as that!

But even from an earlier time than

this, there comes to us a reflected glimmer of a past where the knowledge of lace making was in possession of a people that lived and toiled and perished where now the lakes of Switzerland spread their placid waters.

Fragments of lace, a sort of netted or knotted work, something like the netting our mothers delighted in, have come to us out from beneath the mud of those lakes, together with textiles, twines, ropes and needles, to bear mute witness after uncounted centuries, of a past so strange and remote where yet human thought and ingenuity found expression in pursuits akin to our own.

From the Egyptians, the Jews learned the art of embroidery; and if you read your Bible carefully, you will find that the curtains of the tabernacle and the garments of the priests were decorated with rich embroidery by divine direction.

Exodus 20: 36th v.: "And thou shalt make the hangings of the tent of blue and purple, and scarlet and fine twined linen, wrought with needlework."

And again further on: "And thou shalt embroider the coat of fine linen, and thou shalt make the mitre of gold, and thou shalt make the girdle of needlework."

Again we find the direction that golden bells and pomegranates be wrought upon the hem of a robe round about.

The daughters of Israel were enjoined to let their adornments be the workmanship of their own hands; by which we may justly assume much was wrought in embroidery. "The matrons were veiled with textures like the golden net of Hephaestus, fine as the filmy web the spider weaves."

dignified by divine recognition and approval, who dares call it foolish or look with disdain upon its legitimate pursuit?

Babylonians and Assyrians carried the textile art to great perfection and maintained a reputation for the beauty of their embroideries up to the first century of the Christian era. Josephus tells us that the curtains given by Herod for the temple were of Babylonian workmanship. Embroideries were in threads of linen and wool of rich colors; and the frequent use of gold thread made it magnificently rich in appearance.

This latter is the characteristic of all oriental needlework, that of the past and also of today.

Will it interest you to know that Cleopatra,that cruel Egyptian queen, wore an exquisitely embroidered veil at the feast she gave to Caesar after the death of Pompey?

Greece, nursery of all that is classic, gave to needlework an honored place. Homer, of course you have read that most ancient of great poets, makes constant allusion to embroidery; and a wonderful perfection must have been attained by his mys tic heroines, for they are said to have worked upon garments of gold, portrayals of pictures of the war and the chase. In Rome, too, the art flourished.

In the early part of the Christian era, embroidery was nurtured by the church for pontifical ornaments, altar hangings and curtains, with holy images in gold and silver adorning them. All embroidery of that period seems to have been devoted to ecclesiastical decorations, and most of it was symbolical in its motives.

In mediaeval times the palaces as well as the cloisters vied in the productions of the spinning wheel and the needle; and deeds of chivalry and daring became favorite subjects wrought in immense pieces of tapestry, which were often a life work of loving and patient toil. Here we

find the birth of the renowned tapestry work.

Perhaps you wonder what tapestry is anyway. Embroidery, you know, is done upon a texture having warp and woof, while tapestry was wrought in a loom upon a warp, the weft being supplied by short threads of various colors, thus giving the design. There are valuable heirlooms of tapestries, handed down from the middle ages, wall hangings, furniture coverings, and carpets, that are worth their weight in gold. Some noble homes of Europe are veritable treasurehouses of these tapestries, old laces, and embroideries. One immense piece of embroidery survives from the twelfth century, nineteen inches wide and two hundred and twenty yards long, depicting various scenes of the conquest of England by William of Normandy. marked with crewels on a linen cloth and is filled with figures of fighting men on foot and on horseback. We see by this that pictorial needlework took, at one time, the place of painted pictures. Indeed, it preceded that art by many centuries, and was antecedent to painting in any of its branches.

It is

From the twelfth to the sixteenth century embroidery developed into a serious art; the best artists devoted themselves to productions of embroidery designs, and the brush and the needle combined to produce wonderful effects. Women and men pursued the art as a trade, and great ladies wrought in their castles surrounded by their maids; embroidery became the chief pleasure of great ladies, and it was most serious occupation.

France later added a new branch to the vigorous growth; while still producing figures and portraits, flowers and arabesques were added, wrought in brilliant colors, and gold and silver threads,among which birds and insects sported. Bow knots and cupids were also favorite motives.