The Queen's Carpet

Last month the great educator Mrs. Aminah Khoury Makdisi set out on a visit to America that may last six months. On her way she stayed in London a few days, and she admired the excellent, orderly life led by the English people at large. In a letter to "The Woman's Voice" Mrs. Makdisi said: "Here we are now at the art exhibition in the Albert Museum, where the Queen Mother's carpet is on display. I saw in this exhibition Eastern and Western art, both old and new; but great indeed was my astonishment at the Queen's carpet, and at the thousands of people crowding to see it. We stood in line with the rest for about three-quarters of an hour until our turn came and we entered the hall where the carpet is displayed — a carpet to be placed in the most famous of museums, because it is the work of the fingers of Queen Mary, who is 82 years of age, and who spent nine years in weaving it. What moved her was her sense of the financial straits that had taken hold of her country, and of its need of the dollar to ease its trade; so she resolved to present her country with a carpet of her own hands' work...

The designs of the carpet are of the art of the eighteenth century; she chose the colors herself, and spent long hours studying the design before she undertook this arduous work.

The carpet is 10.2 feet long and 6.9 wide. It is made up of 12 squares, and on each square is the Queen's name and the date of her finishing its weaving... And the English people stream in by the thousands, gladly paying the fee, to see this great royal production..."