Page 124:   " Fabrics appeal to the sense of touch. Hemp is reputed to be coarse, linen cool yet alive, cotton is soft and warm, silk smooth and velvety. The universal language of fabrics has been spoken at all times, in all places, among every group of people, regardless of the raw material available to them. Fabrics are present every moment of the day and night; they witness life's most intimate scenes, thereby weaving a very special relationship with each individual. 
    Fabrics cover and warm. Touching and feeling them is reassuring, as children demonstrate when they choose bits of soft, often ragged material to clutch and stroke as they fall asleep.
    The invention of fabrics dates from the dawn of civilization, probably as a result of braiding plant fibers to make nets, ropes, baskets, and wicker objects. The actual weaving of fabrics appeared nearly everywhere in the world during, or just prior to, the third millennium B.C. But of the approximately seven hundred fibrous plants that could have been spun into thread, only half a dozen were commonly employed: cotton, flax, hemp, jute, sisal, and ramie.
    The current vogue for ecology has led to attempts to revive the use of hemp and ramie in the production of fabrics with new textures, especially for the making of tablecloths.
    For centuries, however, the standard plants used for household linen were hemp and flax, until cotton (pure or blended with synthetic fibers) finally took the lead."

Page 124:   "HEMP AND FLAX:  While recent fashion has tried to re-establish hemp=s pedigree, the plant is no longer grown in Europe for textile purposes, although hemp fibers are still used for manufacturing paper pulp and hemp seed serves as livestock fodder. Coarse dish towels, bath linen, and bed sheets, which were rough on the skin, disappeared from the bridal trousseaux long ago. That explains why even specialist boutiques offer very little antique household linen made from hemp.
    The first use of hemp probably dates all the way back to the third millennium B.C., somewhere in central Asia. Despite its notorious reputation for coarseness, Herodotus noted that skillful Scythians and Thracians in the fifth century B.C. were able to weave fine cloth from hemp:  >Someone without great experience would not recognize whether they were of hemp or linen, and whoever has not yet seen hemp cloth would think the garments were of linen.=
    In medieval Europe, hemp was used to make underclothing and household linen, as well as rope (rope-making was the only trade that lepers in Brittany were allowed to practice).
    Brownish-gray in color, thicker and coarser than linen when new, hemp cloth was often preferred by religious communities and, due to its much lower cost, by the poor. An anecdote asserts that Marie de Medici kept two hemp blouses among her magnificently rich trousseau-perhaps for doing penance. However, anyone lucky enough to touch a length of aged, well-used hemp cloth is amazed by the extreme softness and substantial drape of the fabric, which is similar to that of heavy flannel.
    Throughout history hemp was used more widely in the countryside than in towns, since every farm had its field of hemp (and perhaps another of flax) designed to meet the daily household fabric requirements and to supply part of the daughters= bridal trousseaux."

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