the scales having peeled off. In all cases the rice looks as though
some beetle had taken a circular bite out of the end of each kernel.
Somehow a perusal of the accounts of the remarkable results, leaves
the reader with a conglomerate impression of transformed rice and
imagination.
Nevertheless, the breeding of pearls in cotton-wool or cotton-seed with
rice, is asserted and believed, and the methods by which the wonder is
accomplished may be had with great circumstance and some variations
from those who have experimented. No greater evidence exists of the
child-like faith of people in the old times than the incredible stories
about precious stones which were current in those days.
It is equally wonderful that although it took centuries to disprove
them, they received credence for more centuries after they were shown
to be impossible and one hears those same delightful fairy stories
about angel's tears, drops of dew from heaven, raindrops, etc.,
seriously quoted in this matter-of-fact land to-day, often by people
who after a moment's thought would become conscious of their fallacy.
But romance abhors reason, and though oysters cannot rise to the
surface of the sea, nor raindrops pass immaculate through the ocean
to the gaping mollusks, nor the downpour of one season increase the
yield at once of things which are the growth of years, there will long
remain some who will refuse the dictum of the biologist, that unless
the dews of heaven and the tears of angels carry much lime in solution,
the calcareous surroundings of the oyster's bed must have more to do
with the genesis of the pearl than anything dropped into the ocean by
the clouds above it, and will still cling to fancy in the face of fact.
Meantime the priests of Buddha exact charity oysters from the fishers
of their faith, that the god thus propitiated may cause the oysters to
yield more pearls.
A question often raised, and which by its periodical revival seems
to be a favorite with newspapers and magazines, as well as, to the
general public, is, "Do pearls live and die?" It originated probably in
observations of certain changes that occasionally take place in pearls
which could be readily construed by a speculative or imaginative mind
to mean death. Sometimes with pearls the brilliancy of youth fades and
passes and the clear skin of early days takes on the hue of age.
If now a ready pen waited on fancy to state the facts it would
establish an imaginative theory for centuries, for like gossip, a thing
once printed in a book will long pass on unquestioned and be quoted
or re-stated many times. There are pearls which for certain qualities
invite as a descriptive term the word live. There are others which by
comparison appear, and are described, as dead. Then there are others
that lose by untoward circumstances the live qualities they once
possessed and without dying become dead pearls. The calcite carbonate
crystals of which they are formed dissolve in acids and are affected to
a certain extent by the acidity of the excretions of the human skin,
sufficiently in some cases to destroy, or at any rate dim, their luster.
Gases in the atmosphere, sudden changes in temperature, heat, and
various other influences operate more or less in the same direction.
The chemical changes thus produced might with poetic license be called
the death of the pearl and in a sense the term would be true were the
whole pearl involved, but as a rule these misfortunes affect the outer
skin of the pearl only, so if that dies death is but skin deep, a live
pearl remaining beneath it.
As life and death means the segregation of particles into a compact
individuality and their final dissolution, pearls like all other things
in the restless economy of nature live and die, but the loss of some
of its native charms by the gem is not more a sign of death than the
rougher cuticle of a weather beaten sailor with which exposure has
replaced the smooth skin of the boy.
Nevertheless the idea of death coming to the pearl fascinates and
enterprising writers succeed in frequently placing very interesting
and readable articles before the public which incite the wonderment
of the reader and perpetuate the impression that this beloved gem is
some sort of a living creature subject to human vicissitudes. Lately
a story appeared in current publications which told how the pearls of
a lady's necklace sickened and lost their beauty. Much distressed she
carried them to the expert dealer of whom she bought them who gravely
advised her to let her maid wear them whereupon, they recovered from
the illness and their lustrous beauty was restored.
Twentieth century versions of fables older than this era are common;
shrewd traders and writers use them, nor are they always careful to
attach the fable to the particular gem to which, by right of ancient
usage, it belongs. The magical loss of color in the presence of
impending danger to its wearer is the ruby's prerogative, but, though
pearls may lose their charms by exposure to heat, gas and rough usage,
the wily orientals of remote or later ages provided no traditional
recovery more wonderful than the prosaic method of feeding them to
fowls and cutting them out of the gizzard an hour or two later.
The pearl is generally considered to be the emblem of innocence and
purity. A pretty fashion in vogue among parents who can afford it, is
of giving a pearl to each of their daughters on their birthdays. These
are carefully matched and strung so that the string grows to a necklace
for maturer years.
Along with the emblematic idea and the fanciful notion of their origin,
there comes to us from the old days a superstition concerning pearls
which probably grew out of the statement that they were the congealed
tears of heaven. It was supposed that they brought tears to their
possessors. The idea originated probably about a thousand years ago in
western Europe. It did not exist in Rome during the time of the Cæsars
for the pearl was then the sign of power and affluence and was coveted
by men and women alike and it remains a most popular gem in Italy
to-day.
This absurdity has been kept alive by stories of prominent persons in
whose experience occurrences seemed to confirm the claim. The Queen
of Henry IV. of France dreamt that her diamonds were turned to pearls
the night previous to her husband's assassination by Ravaillac. The
consort of James IV. of Scotland dreamt of pearls three nights in
succession before the disastrous battle of Flodden Field in which he
lost his life. These and similar stories which appeal to a love of the
mysterious and wonderful have been perpetuated by writers of books, so
that even to-day there are women who coveting pearls still fear to own
them.
But to be out of the fashion is more dreadful to women than tears,
so it has come to pass that with the increasing vogue of the pearl,
less is heard of the superstition and it is dying, not of age or the
contempt of knowledge, but by the potency of fashion.
A story already referred to in these pages, that has been current
for over two thousand years during which time it has been mentioned
by almost every writer about pearls, deserves, for its antiquity and
absurdity, consideration here. It is of Cleopatra and the pearl worth
upwards of three hundred thousand dollars she is said to have dissolved
in wine to drink in costly fashion to her lover. This was, of course,
impossible. She may, with the help of the wine have swallowed it like
a pill or, as Sir Thomas Gresham did later, have ground it to powder
and mixed it with the wine she drank, but to dissolve a pearl of great
size as one of this value would be, was a conjurer's feat.
The lime of which a pearl is chiefly composed will dissolve in acid,
but the gem although softened, would remain a pulpy mass held by the
organic matter interwoven throughout the strata of calcium carbonate.
Whatever she really did, or in what form she swallowed the pearl, if
she did so, Cleopatra and her pearl are better known to-day to the
general public than either of her Roman lovers, and they will probably
be handed down through many generations yet to come.
To exaggerate is a common tendency. Dealers usually place inordinately
high figures on exceptional gems which they do for several reasons:
the great price excites wonder and interest; it makes a large profit
possible; it permits considerable reduction to a shrewd buyer; and it
pleases the person who finally purchases it, for if the sale is made
public the first asking price is usually given as the value of the
jewel, and sometimes even that is exceeded. The buyer prefers to have
it so because it increases the importance of his possession in the
public mind and paves the way for a good price if he too at any time
should wish to sell.
One reads constantly in the daily papers of sales where the prices
given are enormously beyond the sums actually paid, for the public like
big figures. Reporters know this and do not fail to supply the demand.
For instance: in an eastern city of the United States, a man while at
a lunch counter found a pearl in the oyster he was eating. He took it
at once to a jeweller of his acquaintance who handed it to a New York
pearl-dealer present and asked him to value it.
The pearl was large and round but, like all such formations in the
edible oyster, quite devoid of the nacre which constitutes a true
pearl. The dealer so informed them, adding casually, "If it were a true
pearl it would be worth several thousand dollars." An evening paper
that day had a half column story about it with, "A pearl worth five
thousand dollars found in an oyster at a lunch-counter," in black
head-lines, and the morning papers of the following day enlarged the
story by adding fanciful details.
Undoubtedly in the old days of license when immense fortunes were
made not only in trade but by piratical wars, large prices were paid
by fortune's favorites for pearls but it is extremely probable that
report, bruited from mouth to mouth, exaggerated even more than the
printed fables of our times do. It is doubtful if the pearls of ancient
chronicles were as fine, judged by the standards of to-day, as we
imagine or that all of them were as large as reported. The public were
more ignorant about them than now and also more credulous and these
invite exaggeration.
Very large pearls which for perfection of shape, luster and freedom
from flaws are beyond criticism, are the most rare of all gems. The
conditions under which a pearl grows, makes large size, without the
development of irregularities in the form and imperfections in the
skin, almost impossible; and as they all grow in the same way, by the
same process, out of the same sources of supply and subject to the same
limitations, we find big and little, fine and ordinary, in about the
same proportions as they occurred thousands of years ago; the fish that
made them then makes them now, in the same kind of a narrow workshop
and within the bounds of a life whose duration has not changed.
Of very ancient historic pearls, the only one of which we have reliable
and expert knowledge, is that of the Shah of Persia seen by Tavernier.
This and La Peregrina are supposed to be still in existence. Of the
very large pearls generally mentioned by writers, three undoubtedly
exist, viz., La Pellegrina, the Beresford Hope and one of medium
quality in the Austrian Crown weighing about twelve hundred grains.
It is probable that very many pearls have been found, which if
generally known would have become celebrated, but of those chronicled,
most have passed out of public knowledge. It is probable that some of
those about which much has been written were not as beautiful as others
which have escaped notoriety. The writer's habit of drawing upon the
past to illustrate a subject, has narrowed the literature of pearls
to reiterated records of a few great pearls which one by one have been
brought to public notice during the past centuries.
Exact and reliable statements about gems are a modern innovation. In
the old times unverified report was the only evidence the general
public had of them. Crown jewellers, not always quite reliable,
would make public some statements in general terms about the jewels
of a reigning house. Occasionally, as in the case of France, the
state had the crown jewels inventoried so that some fairly definite
knowledge could be had of them. Infrequently a traveller published
his observations, made under more or less favorable circumstances,
of the jewels of some oriental prince. Chief of these was Tavernier,
the French jeweller. He not only had expert knowledge of gems but was
able by recommendations of the French court, to gain such access to
the jewels of eastern princes and dealers that he could make critical
examinations of them.
For various reasons it is extremely difficult also in these days to
obtain accurate knowledge of extraordinary gems. Dealers for business
reasons are chary of information, nor will they make such pieces
common by allowing many to see and handle them. The buyer is equally
averse to publicity, so that exact knowledge does not pass far beyond
the dealer and his customer as a rule.
The finest pearl known is that in the Museum of Zosima, in Moscow,
called La Pellegrina. It is perfectly round and so lustrous that it
appears to be transparent. It weighs about 112 grains and was bought of
the captain of an East India ship at Leghorn.
The largest known pearl to-day is in the Beresford Hope collection
shown at the South Kensington Museum, London. It is two inches long and
its circumference is four and a half inches. It weighs three ounces
(1818 grains).
[Illustration: COUNTESS TORBY]
Tavernier saw a pearl in 1663 belonging to the Shah of Persia which
was valued at 3200 tomans or about $320,000 of our money. It was very
perfect, pear-shaped, and nearly three inches long. It is believed to
have come from the ancient fishery at Catifa in Arabia. Even this great
sum was exceeded by Pliny in his estimate of the pearl Cleopatra is
said to have swallowed. He placed the value of that at $375,000. As
the Shah's pearl was about three inches long, Cleopatra's must have
been large enough to reflect on the story connected with it.
It is said Julius Cæsar presented a pearl valued at an equivalent of
nearly $250,000 to Servilla the sister of Cato of Utica and mother of
Marcus Junius Brutus. The pearl taken from the ear-drop of Caecilia
Metella by Clodius to dissolve and drink in vinegar was valued at
$40,000.
A large pear-shaped pearl weighing one thousand grains was found at the
island of Margarita off the Colombian coast and given to Philip II. of
Spain. Some reports say it was obtained in 1579; others give the date
as 1560 and say it was presented to the monarch by Don Diego de Temes.
It was valued then at something over $30,000, but Freco, the king's
jeweller, said it might be worth twice to twenty times as much for such
a gem was priceless. It was later known among the crown jewels as La
Peregrina. Prior to this, a companion of Magellan reported having seen
two pearls as large as hen's eggs in the possession of the Rajah of
Borneo.
The pearl which Sir Thomas Gresham drank in his wine to Elizabeth of
England is said to have been worth seventy-five thousand dollars. It
was reported some years ago that the Queen of the Gambiers owned a
pearl of extraordinary luster, as large as a pigeon's egg. There is a
story that in 1779 a pearl weighing 2312 grains which cost in India
$22,500, was offered for sale in St. Petersburg. It was called the
sleeping lion because of its shape and must have been therefore a
baroque.
The republic of Venice presented a pearl to Soliman The Magnificent,
Sultan of Turkey, which was valued at $80,000, and Pope Leo X. bought
one of a Venetian jeweller for $70,000. These sums make the prices
of to-day seem insignificant and it is very probable that many of
the pearls which brought such large amounts would not pass criticism
now. Perhaps one reason for the scarcity of large pearls among those
taken from the fisheries in this age is that many of them are classed
as baroques or are not sufficiently fine and perfect to attract
attention. They pass therefore among those considered unworthy of
notice.
A brown pearl valued at $25,000 was exhibited by Marchisini of Florence
at the Maritime International Exhibition at Naples in 1871. Among the
Dudley pearls exhibited at the London Exhibition of 1872 was a necklace
of exceptionally fine pearls valued at $150,000. The late Czar of
Russia spent twenty-five years in collecting sufficient perfect Virgin
pearls to form a necklace for his wife. The Countess Henckel owns a
necklace of pearls which for value and associations is unrivalled.
It is composed of three strands, each at one time being a separate
and historical necklace. One was the famous necklace belonging to the
Empress Eugénie which has been valued at £20,000; one known as "the
necklace of the Virgin of Atokha," formerly owned by a member of the
Spanish nobility, the third belonged to the ex-Queen of Naples. For
value this is exceeded by a single strand necklace of large pearls
lately bought by a western millionaire of the United States. It is
composed of thirty-seven pearls ranging from eighteen to fifty-two and
three-quarter grains each, the latter being the largest central pearl.
The combined weight of the pearls is 979-3/4 grains and the value is
given at $400,000.
A very beautiful and nearly perfect pear-shaped pearl was found on
the north-east coast of Australia in the seventies. It weighed 159
grains. There is a pearl about the size of a pigeon's egg in the
French crown jewels, valued at $8,000. Many fine pearls, especially
black or colored, have been found on the Mexican coast during the last
twenty-five years, among them a black pearl of 162 grains and another
of 108 grains, a white pear-shape weighing 176 grains, an oval of
128 grains, and three weighing 300 grains, 180 grains and 372 grains
respectively, the first two being found in the same year.
In the World's Fair in Paris, 1889, seven black pearls from this
district, valued at $22,000 were exhibited. These and others are
described in "Gems and Precious Stones" by Kunz. No fresh-water pearl
has attained an equal notoriety with the Queen pearl found at Notch
Brook near Paterson, New Jersey, in 1857. It weighed 93 grains and was
sold to the Empress Eugénie.
Another round pearl of 400 grains, ruined by boiling, had it been
properly extracted from the mussel, would probably have been the
finest and most notable pearl of this age, though another as large as
a pigeon's egg, dropped from the mollusk and lost when the shell was
opened, might have rivalled it. The finder was wading in a stream in
Ohio, feeling for the projecting edges of the mussels with his feet,
and opening them as he brought them to the surface, as was custom
there. This, however, may have been like the fish that got away.
PEARLS IN LITERATURE
In all countries where woman has been enthroned in the respect as well
as the affections of man, the pearl has been inseparably connected
with her in his mind as a peculiarly fitting accompaniment to feminine
loveliness. In the romantic dreams of youth, which hide betimes
the harsh realism of life under a golden haze of imagery; where
belted knights and fair ladies live and move unfettered, and all the
impossible delights of sweet desire free from untoward consequences are
reasonable; where invincible swords have no thought of the horrors of
carnage, and unimpeded love is without cold calculation or following of
sorrow, pearls everywhere shimmer.
And when in his exalted moods man paints the shadow picture of the
goddess of his life, he finds one gem alone befitting with which to
deck her, namely, the pearl. This has come to pass probably because
the ideal qualities of woman and the sea-gem are alike, purity and
modesty. The beauty of the most lustrous pearl is unobtrusive and its
quality is virginal. In our visions of the spectral past, the shades of
the consorts of the mighty all wear them.
Pearls hang pendent from the ears of Egypt's voluptuous queens,
and Rome's proud matrons. Pearls clasp the dainty flesh of Moslem
houris and rest in the soft folds of draperies that cling about those
daughters of the Orient, the common mortals of their day might not
look upon. Great pearls hang festooned and pendent round the necks of
lightly draped Dianas of the warm south lands, and coiled about the
brown arms of the daughters of the chiefs in far-off islands of the
South Seas.
Upon reclining figures in the ancient palaces of Persia and Arab tents:
wherever the proud women of the conquering occident move in stately
measure across the high terraces of noble placement: in all dreams
of fair women and brave men, are swords and pearls. And this is so
because in all the ages, women of high position have loved pearls and
writers have told it. In our old world so far, neither earth nor sea
has yielded ought else so fit to lie in the bosom of woman, or to
symbolize her character and beauty, as the chaste and dainty pearl.
This high atmosphere of precious supremacy and reverence, which
surrounds the gem now as it has for more than twenty centuries, is
a legacy of Rome. The east loved pearls as beautiful and precious
trinkets; while Rome gave to them imperial honors and drew around them
the mystic circle of patrician favor. And since that day, in every land
where an aristocracy existed or came into existence, pearls have been
the familiars of the exclusive.
This natural fitness of the gem for refined associations is recognized
by Emerson in his "Friendship." He says:
Thou foolish Hafiz! Say! do churls
Know the worth of Oman's pearls?
Give the gem which dims the moon
To the noblest, or to none.
It is a late echo of the scriptural saying, "Cast not your pearls
before swine." No modern poet shows more knowledge of the nature, or a
more just appreciation of the delicate beauty of the gem than Emerson.
In his "May Day," speaking of the tardiness of the spring, he writes:
"Slow grows the palm, too slow the pearl."
Evidently he knew of the slow process by which the successive coats of
filmy nacre increase the size of the growing gem. Likewise a couplet
in "Nature" betrays the poet's observation of the iridescent nature of
the colors in mother-of-pearl, and in the gem occasionally when those
fleeting tints are added to the beauty of its luster; the lines are a
dainty illustration:
Illusions like the tints of pearl,
Or changing colors of the sky.
Some of the great poets, notably Tennyson, apparently confuse the
gem with its mother-of-pearl, or refer to the latter only when they
speak of pearl. In his "Recollections of the Arabian Nights," however,
Tennyson in describing one of his beauties evidently refers to the gem:
And a brow of pearl
Tressed with redolent ebony.
Writing of the mermaid, the lines are more suggestive of the shell
nacre:
Combing her hair
Under the sea,
In a golden curl
With a comb of pearl.
Again in a sonnet, he evidently refers to mother-of-pearl when he says:
All night through archways of the bridgèd pearl,
And portals of pure silver, walks the moon.
This indiscriminate use of the gem's name to appropriate its pearly
characteristics is a common poetic license. In Ben Jonson's "Hymn to
Diana," he bids her,
Lay thy bow of pearl apart.
Sometimes metaphor is worse mixed, as when Milton in "Paradise Lost"
describes the waters above the firmament about the gate of Heaven thus:
And underneath a bright sea flowed
Of jasper, or of liquid pearl.
In this poem of gorgeous description, the author makes several
allusions to the gem and some of them, especially those in his word
paintings of scenes in Eden, are poetically beautiful and true. One
delightful to the eye of the mind,
How from that sapphire fount the crispèd brooks
Rolling on orient pearls and sands of gold,
and another in the description of morning in Eden, equally beautiful
though it takes more license:
Now Morn, her rosy steps in th' eastern clime
Advancing, sow'd the earth with orient pearl.
In his "Epitaph on the Marchioness of Winchester," a couplet shows that
he was familiar with the superstition of sorrow connected with them:
And those pearls of dew she wears,
Proove to be presaging tears.
Herrick also associated pearls and tears though more happily as in
"Corinna's Maying."