Such occupations might be pursued in the strict seclusion of home, to which custom and public sentiment consigned the fair student. Nor were they inharmonious with the ties of friendship and love to which her tender nature clung. In most instances women have been led to the cultivation of art through the choice of parents or brothers. While nothing has been more common than to see young men embracing the profession against the wishes of their families and in the face of difficulties, the example of a woman thus deciding for herself is extremely rare. 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, spinning and weaving were feminine employments, in which undying germs of art were hidden; for it belongs to human nature never to be satisfied with what merely ministers to necessity. The ancient sepulchres and buried palaces disclosed by modern discovery display the love of adornment prevailing among the nations of antiquity. Women rendered assistance in works upon wood and metal, as well as, more frequently, in the productions of the loom. The fair Egyptians covered their webs with the most delicate patterns; and the draperies of the dead and the ornamented hangings in their dwellings attested the skill of the women of Assyria and Babylon. The shawls and carpets of Eastern manufacture, and other articles of luxury that furnished the palaces of European monarchs, were often the work of delicate hands, though no tradition has preserved the names of those who excelled in such labors. Among the ancient Greeks the position of woman, though still secluded and slavish, gave her a nobler life. The presiding deities of the gentle arts were represented to popular apprehension in female form, and, doubtless, the gracious influence the sex has in all ages exercised was then in some measure recognized. Poetry had her fair votaries, and names are still remembered that deserve to live with Sappho. Schools of philosophy were presided over by the gifted and cultivated among women.