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atmosphere. Always in storage a damp sponge should be placed with
them.
No wonder many believe the pearl both lives and dies. The
chemical changes that insensibly take place in its constitution are
appalling. It would seem, indeed, as if its body sickened, and its
soul passed away. One can understand how more credulous generations
believed that pearls brought tears. They do, in a sense, even
to this hour.
Yet the pearl was not always significant of ill-luck, as are
shown by some lines of Browning, who ought to know, being a poet,
the magic of a gem:
A simple ring, with a single stone,
To the vulgar eye, no stone of price ;
Whisper the right word, that alone
Forth starts a sprite, like fire from ice,
And lo, you are lord (says an Eastern scroll)
Of Heaven and earth, lord whole and sole,
Through the power in a pearl!
The pearl is the one jewel in history connected with sorrow.
All else were coveted by the great majority less for their beauty
than their benign mystical influences. But the pearl as the herald
of woe was feared throughout the Middle Ages and down even to
our time. The night before her husband's assassination the wife
of Henry IV. of France dreamed her diamonds were turned to
pearls. Three nights in succession before the battle of Flodden
Field, which made her a widow, the wife of James IV. of Scotland
dreamed of pearls. There are women to-day, foolish maybe, who
are afraid to wear a pearl. One such says the day has never
dawned when she could put one on without trouble closely follow-
ing. Pearls spell tears.
Though unmistakably the herald of sorrow, the pearl at the
same time stands for purity and innocence, and is, therefore, appropriate
for the young. It is the alternate natal stone for February
and June. Some mothers give their daughters a pearl for each
birthday, and finally string them into a strand which charms, de-
spite its hint of accummulated misfortune. Yet, while pleasing to
the girls and the jewelers, such may become an inconvenient witness
to the flight of time, unless one is careful to lose a few, or
ceases the collection suddenly.
"The high value attached to the pearl by the ancient Hebrews is
illustrated by a beautiful Rabbinical story in which only one object
in nature is ranked above them," says that repository of rare knowl-
edge, "The Book of the Pearl," from whose influence it is difficult
to break away :
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