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white satin or black velvet; pearl owners need lessons in tailoring
not less than in "type." No gem is more becoming to the Orientals,
with their white teeth, coffee-colored skins and midnight eyes,
and in India the men wear them too, at least the Gaikwars and
Maharajahs, who affix them like the artists they often are.
The price of a large, lustrous, Oriental pearl is much above its
mate in diamonds, not only because the demand just now is great,
but because a pearl cannot be cut to order. It may be doctored and
improved a bit, or cunningly set to hide defects, but its absolute
worth is almost exclusively up to the mollusc ! If, like many human
laborers, he is careless or lazy, or if an accident to his jeweled
mansion lets in the winds or waves, the pearl will never be the
joy it might have been under conditions more serene. Few have any
idea how rare are the perfect. Even when obtained, they often
prove disappointing are easily discolored by fire, damaged by
rough handling, losing lustre through cold or neglect, while a child
can reduce them to powder. Like the opal, the pearl is sensitive to
low temperatures, and its lustre marvelously improved by the
warmth of the body. To the economist, which the woman grown
rich through man's labor generally is not, it seems absurd to invest
fortunes in such a perishable object when, unlike the diamond,
the pearl is becoming only to those who as a rule cannot afford
them the young.
The native who, clutching emerald or jade, sold pearls to the
white man for a song, rated them at their physical worth. Yet
he soon became sophisticated, observing the stranger's inexplicable
appetite for their frail charm. He still readily lets them go, not for
broken glass, however, but for their weight over and over in gold.
It is said that the pearl, as a jewel, is not ancient not much
older than the Christian era. Many contend that it was not mentioned
in the Old Testament, supposed to have been completed 400 B. C.,
the confusion in gem nomenclature between the ancients and moderns
accounting for such reference when occurring. Pearls were
not worn to any extent till the extravagance of the Romans caused
them to scour land and water, the mountain and the desert, for their
personal adornment.
There is Cleopatra with her pearl, of course, Clodius with his,
and Sir Thomas Gresham, flattering Queen Elizabeth, a long way
after, with his; but doesn't it seem stupid rather than interesting
to swallow a pearl like a pill, simply to invent a new extravagance ?
They must have been taken whole or in the form of powder, for it
has been proved that pearl will not dissolve in either vinegar or wine
its matrix at least, soft but insoluble, remains. As the only possible
excuse for such an action must be its spontaneity, the direct
result of the intoxication of the moment, modern scientists make
Cleopatra and her imitators seem calculating rather than sioned.impas-
Imitations in fish-scale are often so good that many honest
people may be pardoned for preferring the comely false to the
ugly real. Strong glass is blown out, lined close to the surface
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