Untitled

Bequem's pupils were encouraged greatly by Cardinal Mazarin,
who ordered twelve of the largest diamonds in the French crown recut
after the new fashion, about 1520.
Diamond cutting naturally was taken to by the Jews, whom
religious persecution half a century later drove from various places
to Amsterdam, where they flourish to this day. Amsterdam and
Antwerp, the latter harboring all the French refugees during the
political troubles of the eighteenth century, are now the diamond cutting
centres. But the industry is making amazing strides in the
United States.
It was here, indeed, that the brilliant cut reached its highest
perfection, first at the hands of Henry D. Morse, of Boston, who
conjured with some of the cheaper stones, making them rival in
then by Mr. Passmore, also of
beauty others infinitely more costly ;
Boston, who is doing for colored stones what his predecessor did for
the diamond.
So extraordinary has been the progress in the transformation of
ordinary transparent stones, such as garnets, peridots, zircons, to
mechanical skill
objects of great splendor, that it seems as though
could go no farther.
All efforts to improve on a cut which, in its way, seems perfect
have so far come to naught. The trouble is rather that everything is
being thrown into the scale on the side of mere brilliance. Sometimes
the glare wearies the eye. The beryl, for instance, has a softer, more
eloquent tint when simply cut en cabochon. Defective rubies,
allowed to assume this form, and set low in richly carved gold, often
carry off the palm from their more perfect sisters poised in a high
clawed setting and brilliant in a way that does not belong to this gem,
unless endowed with rare natural fire.
The astonishing fact about a diamond is that its beauty is largely
due to the bending of a line of light, not to its appearance as the Lord
made it scarcely more impressive, as King Edward remarked of the
great Cullinan, when shown to him in the rough, than a glassy pebble
kicked aside in the road.
From a curiosity this is converted into a thing of beauty by the
skill of the cutter to catch the light and, by means of many facets, at
exactly the right angle, every step calculated to a nicety, to send
it back and forth, like battledore and shuttlecock, till wearied with
the struggle it is allowed to rest at last in its lover's eye.
Mr. Morse's scientific study, aided by his artistic perception,
enabled him to attain a perfection which not only brought the United
States into a prominent position among diamond experts, but revolutionized
the methods of the whole world. For he did away with
much of the old hand labor, replacing it with a machine wonderful in
its accuracy and speed. "Mr. Morse above all others," says one,
"has shown that diamond cutting is an art, not an industry"
There is a lot of affectation in the talk about the vulgarity of diamonds.
It is mostly from the lips of impecunious artistic temperaments,
who could not own them if they would. Such a gem is not to
be worn to market, but it is the height of beauty in its place. On a
37