But the sensitiveness of the poet may have supplied the blank left by the artist, or virtuoso. I take one as a specimen. “The Greek,” says Schiller, “is to the greatest degree accurate, true, and circumstantial in his descriptions; but he shows no more heartfelt interest in the beauties of Nature, than in the account of a dress, a shield, or a preparation for war.” No more! If he felt for the beauties of nature, as he did for his costume, his armour, and the great event of war, how immeasurably would he have left behind the modern German’s whining sentimentalism about rainbows and groundsel. To this the German and the modern are reduced, because war has become a secret and a trade; our weapons a matter of commissariat and costume--a covering fit for apes. FOOTNOTES: [272] Much akin to this is the weaving among the Red Indians. “The hair of the buffalo and other animals is twisted by hand, and made into balls. The warp is then laid, of a length, crossed by three small, smooth rods, alternately beneath the threads, suspended on forks at a short distance above the ground. The woof is filled in, thread by thread, and pressed closely down. The ends of the warp are tied into knots, and the blanket is ready for use.”--HUNTER’S _Captivity_, p. 289. [273] “When the Jews come to receive the king, none but the person who carries the Book of the Law shall wear Talith, or the cloth over their clothes; nor in carrying a corpse for interment are they to wear it, or chant in the streets.”--_Cortes of Toledo_, 1480, Sect. 117. [274] The Emperor of Russia has published a ukase in favour of the Jews, to put an end to the invidious distinctions in dress. The Jews, though wearing no longer that of Judæa, look on the boon as the hardest of their trials. [275] If two threads of the fringe were worn, it was worthless. [276] There is a Jewish prayer for the restoration, beginning, “Bring us in peace from the four corners of the earth, and lead us safely to our land.” As they repeat it, _they hold the four corners of the Talith to the heart_. [277] Plates of the Talith are given in “Modern Judaism,” pp. 69, 70, 80. The small Talith, which among the European Jews is worn like the scapula, over breast and back, has in Morocco no aperture, and is worn crosswise, exactly as the haïk is put on. [278] In Prisse’s “Egypt and Abyssinia” there are figures which might be taken for Roman senators, only that the border is blue instead of red.