"We know little of the practice of the arts by women in ancient times. The degraded condition of the sex in Eastern countries rendered woman the mere slave and toy of her master; but this very circumstance gave her artistic ideas capable of development into independent action. These first showed themselves in the love of dress and the selection of ornaments. From the early ages of the world, too, and were feminine employments, in which undying germs of art were hidden; for it belongs to human nature never to be satisfied with what merely minsters to necessity."