Now It Gets Interesting

 It is incredible that the clattering, hulking machines of the Industrial Revolution swallowed these gifted women and children up in their great steam mouths, and spat them out onto the streets. Such coarse, mimeographed imitation laces are pathetic in their hopes to be as valuable, for no grating of gears and spindles can match the creative power of these women and children in their misery and illness.  How could society prefer such vulgar scraps, unless it, too, had degenerated in one swift motion? Education acts killed many sheltering lace schools in the name of progress and child rights. War and the weedy explosion of factories blasted gaping craters in the demand for such frivolous fineries, and devoured many of the artists in its thirst for soldiers and labor. If only the working conditions could have simply been improved instead of removed; yet, in their bondage and suffering, they have given their lace their best nurturing, for torture creates the best art.