They involve a routine of minor duties which often appear, at first view, little if at all connected with such mighty ends. But such an inference would lead to a false conclusion. It is entirely of insignificant details that the sum of human life is made up; and any one of those details, how insignificant soever _apparently_ in itself, as a link in the chain of human life is of _definite_ relative value. The preparing of a spoonful of gruel may seem a very insignificant matter; yet who that stands by the sick-bed of one near and dear to him, and sees the fevered palate relieved, the exhausted frame refreshed by it, but will bless the hand that made it? It is not the independent intrinsic worth of each isolated action of woman which stamps its value--it is their bearing and effect on the mass. It is the daily and hourly accumulation of minute particles which form the vast amount. And if we look for that feminine employment which adds most absolutely to the comforts and the elegancies of life, to what other shall we refer than to NEEDLEWORK? The hemming of a pocket-handkerchief is a trivial thing in itself, yet it is a branch of an art which furnishes a useful, a graceful, and an agreeable occupation to one-half of the human race, and adds very materially to the comforts of the other half. How sings our own especial Bard?-- "So long as garments shall be made or worne; So long as hemp, or flax, or sheep shall bear Their linnen wollen fleeces yeare by yeare; So long as silkwormes, with exhausted spoile Of their own entrailes, for mans gaine shall toyle: Yea, till the world be quite dissolv'd and past, So long, at least, the NEEDLE'S use shall last." 'Tis true, indeed, that as far as _necessity_, rigidly speaking, is concerned, a very small portion of needlework would suffice; but it is also true that the very signification of the word necessity is lost, buried amidst the accumulations of ages. We talk habitually of _mere necessaries_, but the fact is, that we have hardly an idea of what merely necessities are.