Page:Arts & Crafts Essays.djvu/393

 is almost impossible to keep the silver from tarnishing. Ordinary "gold passing," which consists of a gilt silver thread wound round silk, is also apt to tarnish, and should always be lacquered before using—a rather troublesome process to do at home, as the gold has to be unwound and brushed over with the lacquer, and should be dried in a warm room free from damp, or on a hot sunny day. Japanese paper-gold is useful, for the reason that it does not tarnish, though in some ways it is more troublesome to manage than the gold that can be threaded in a needle and passed through the material. It consists, like much of the ancient gold thread, of a gilded strip of paper wound round silk, the old gold being gilded vellum, when not the flat gold beaten out thin (as, by the bye, in many of the Eastern towels made to-day where the flat tinsel is very cleverly used). 369