PEARLS 223 



before doves, under the belief that they could be polished 

 by being pecked and played with by the gentle birds. 



In some respects pearls are superior to all other gems. 

 They are emblematic of serenity, and serenity is often 

 power in the highest manifestation. None ever said 

 an unkind word of pearls; no dubious legend clings to 

 them, making the timid afraid. They come to us 

 perfectly fashioned. No coarse handiwork has touched 

 them, no soulless machine ground them to conventional 

 pattern. The last diamond may be, the last pearl 

 never, until the sea gives up more than its dead, its very 

 being. Pearls may begin and end in foam; but the 

 beginning is now and always, and the ending rare, for 

 the Cleopatras are gone. Emblems of purity, refine- 

 ment, and peace, they are truly the gems for woman. 

 Queenly or demure, they become her, and she bestows 

 on them a quality hard to define, but singularly sweet 

 and acceptable. Gold and precious stones may occupy 

 billions of years in the making, or may be the product of 



" The war of elements, 

 The wrecks of matter, and the crash of worlds." 



Once we find these hard, cold things and take hold of 

 and seize them, we know that we have, to use a homely 

 simile, eaten our cake. The supply of pearls is con- 

 tinuous, and under the control of the cruel ingenuity of 

 man they grow to an ordinary size in less than a decade. 



Many years ago an opinion was expressed that the 

 increasing knowledge of the mollusc and its habits 

 would enable man literally to sow the sea with pearls 

 as he sows a field with grain, and that the harvest 

 would be certain. Under natural conditions not one 

 oyster in a hundred is troubled with a pearl, and not one 

 pearl in the hundred is of any real value. It is demanded 

 that unsuspecting oysters shall be inflicted with a 



