"Gold is the most precious of all metals, and it must, therefore,
correspond to the most precious attribute, or quality of the mind. What
is that attribute?--and what is that quality?"
"Love," said I, after a pause, "Love is the most precious attribute of
the mind--goodness the highest quality."
"Then, it is no mere fancy to say that gold corresponds to love, or
goodness. It is pure, and ductile, and warm in color, like love; while
silver is harder, and white and shining, like truth. Gold and silver in
nature are, then, as goodness and truth in the human soul. In one we
find the riches of this world, in the other divine riches. And if gold
and silver correspond to precious things of the mind, so must brilliant
jewels. The diamond! How wonderful is its affection for light--taking
in the rays eagerly, dissolving them, and sending them forth again to
gladden the eyes in rich prismatic beauty! And to what mental quality
must the diamond correspond? As it loves the sun's rays, in which are
heat and light--must it not correspond to the affection of things good
and true?--heat being of love, and light of truth or wisdom? The wearer
of diamonds, then, should have in her heart the heavenly affection to
which they correspond. She should be loving and wise."
"It will not do to make an estimate in this way," said I. "The measure
is too exacting."
"I will admit that. But we cannot help thinking of the quality when we
look upon its sign. With a beautiful face, when first seen, do we not
always associate a beautiful soul? And when a lady adorns herself with
the most beautiful and costly things in nature, how can we help
looking, to see whether they correspond to things in her mind! For one,
I cannot; and so, almost involuntarily, I keep turning my eyes upon
Miss Harvey, and looking for signs of her quality."
"And how do you read the lady?" I inquired.
My friend shook his head.
"The observation is not favorable."
"Not favorable," he replied. "No, not favorable. She thinks of her
jewels--she is vain of them."
"The temptation is great," I said.
"The fact of so loading herself with costly jewels, is in itself
indicative of vanity--"
A third party joining us at this moment, we dropped the subject of Miss
Harvey. But, enough had been said to make me observe her closely during
the evening.
The opening line of Moore's charming lyric,
"Rich and rare were the gems she wore,"
kept chiming in my thoughts, whenever I glanced towards her, and saw
the glitter of her diamonds. Yet, past the gems my vision now went, and
I searched the fair girl's countenance for the sparkle of other and
richer jewels. Did I find them? We shall see.
"Helen," I heard a lady say to Miss Harvey, "is not that Mary Gardiner?"
"I believe so," was her indifferent answer.
"Have you spoken to her this evening?"
"No, aunt."
"Why?"
"Mary Gardiner and I were never very congenial. We have not been thrown
together for some time; and now, I do not care to renew the
acquaintance."
I obtained a single glance of the young lady's face. It was proud and
haughty in expression, and her eyes had in them a cold glitter that
awoke in me a feeling of repulsion.
"I wish you were congenial," the lady said, speaking partly to herself.
"We are not, aunt," was Miss Harvey's reply; and she assumed the air of
one who felt herself far superior to another with whom she had been
brought into comparison.
"The gems do not correspond, I fear," said I to myself, as I moved to
another part of the room. "But who is Miss Gardiner?"
In the next moment, I was introduced to the young lady whose name was
in my thought. The face into which I looked was of that fine oval which
always pleases the eye, even where the countenance itself does not
light up well with the changes of thought. But, in this case, a pair of
calm, deep, living eyes, and lips of shape most exquisitely delicate
and feminine--giving warrant of a beautiful soul--caused the face of
Miss Gardiner to hold the vision as by a spell. Low and very musical
was her voice, and there was a discrimination in her words, that lifted
whatever she said above the common-place, even though the subjects were
of the hour.
I do not remember how long it was after my introduction to Miss
Gardiner, before I discovered that her only ornament was a small,
exquisitely cut cameo breast-pin, set in a circlet of pearls. There was
no obtrusive glitter about this. It lay more like an emblem than a
jewel against her bosom. It never drew your attention from her face,
nor dimmed, by contrast, the radiance of her soul-lit eyes. I was
charmed, from the beginning, with this young lady. Her thoughts were
real gems, rich and rare, and when she spoke there was the flash of
diamonds in her sentences; not the flash of mere brilliant sayings,
like the gleaming of a polished sword, but of living truths, that lit
up with their own pure radiance every mind that received them.
Two or three times during the evening, Miss Harvey, radiant in her
diamonds--they cost twenty-two hundred dollars--the price would intrude
itself--and Miss Gardiner, almost guiltless of foreign ornament, were
thrown into immediate contact. But Miss Gardiner was not recognized by
the haughty wearer of gems. It was the old farce of pretence, seeking,
by borrowed attractions, to outshine the imperishable radiance of
truth. I looked on, and read the lesson her conduct gave, and wondered
that any were deceived into even a transient admiration. "Rich and rare
were the gems she wore," but they had in them no significance as
applied to the wearer. It was Miss Gardiner who had the real gems,
beautiful as charity, and pure as eternal truth; and she wore them with
a simple grace, that charmed every beholder who had eyes clear enough
from earthy dust and smoke to see them.
I never meet Miss Harvey, that I do not think of the pure and heavenly
things of the mind to which diamonds correspond, nor without seeing
some new evidence that she wears no priceless jewels in her soul.