of Persia and of India have beauties which we, with all our ap- 
pliances and means, cannot surpass. ‘The gorgeous East show- 
ers its barbaric pearl and gold into its magnificent textures. But 
‘is there really anything barbaric in the skill and taste which 
they display? Does the oriental prince or monarch, even if he 
confine his magnificence to native manufactures, present himself 
to the eyes of his slaves in a less splendid or less elegant attire 
than the nobles and the sovereigns of this our western world, 
more highly civilized as we nevertheless deem it? Few persons 
I think would answer in the affirmative. The silks and shawls, 
the embroidery and jewellery, the moulding and carving, which 
those countries can, produce, and which decorate their palaces 
and their ‘dwellers in palaces, are even now such as we cannot 
excel. Oriental magnificence is still a proverbial mode‘of de- 
scribing/a degree of splendor and artistical richness which is not 
found among ourselves: bye (ors ‘iad 
“What, then, shall we say of ourselves?’ Wherein is our supe- 
riority? In what do we see the effect, the realization, of that 
~ 
1 of nearly an 
nations which have felt the full influence of progress like our 
selves? bi vi ete 
h 
Ld 
peaceful potentate are used to provide clothing for the world. 
For that which makes it suitable that machinery, constructed on 
